Pale Blue Eyes

She forgets
cigarettes and
loses the money

Father demands
their whereabouts,
smiling with anger

Trembling in
pale blue eyes,
she doesn’t know

Father beats her
in drunken stupor,
raging against all

Mother is nowhere
to be found,
mind long gone

In school,
they see welts
and bruises

Always they see
constant sadness in
pale blue eyes

She is shuffled off
to foster home
after foster home

Often she is seen
staring out windows
pale blue eyes

Her role model is a
wayward roommate seeking
love on street corners

Overworked social workers
never truly see her
pale blue eyes

Often she walks
around town seeking
what cannot be had

For there is no love
to be found absent
father and mother

And a foster home
with more abuse and
tortured souls

Will she ever find it,
so her beautiful heart
can sing once again?

Pale blue eyes,
always walking around
looking for love.