Pale Blue Silky Sheets – Poetry – July 20th 2020

She let her bags gently slide off her shoulder as she glanced around her room

The room that she paid thirty dollars a week for

In this strange house, she calls her new home

With this new family, she finds a new beginning

A new life, to start in whatever and however, she knows how

At 16 going on 30 perhaps, she doesn’t know, but it seems like, for now

It seemed like the world has stopped going round for her

She keeps on moving, walking each heavy step

She looks at the bed with its silky pale blue sheets and felt its coolness, or was it just how she felt

The coldness and sterile part of the beginning of her journey

Sadness tried to grip her heart and entire being, but she didn’t let it, for all she felt was nothing

Her being numb and frozen

Beyond this door and walls, she just needed to survive day after day

This day and tomorrow

For all she had was herself and what good would it do, to drown in sorrow, when you’re all alone, it’ll only get worse

She awakes early in the morning to do what the master of the house instructs her to do

Before she heads off to school

Alone on the road, she accepts that ride, only to escape the bitterness slap of the snowy blizzard against her face

The old man with the white hair, ever so polite and gentle with his words and smile, lifted her spirits with his kindness

The walk back home in the dead of the night after her shift at the bakery, wishing he’d appear, made her feel sad because it made her feel lonely

Hungry for someone to care, it’s been awhile

If only he would re-appear just to ask how her day was, is all she needed

Starved for his kindness, as she enters the house, full of chores waiting for her tired body

At 2 am, she finished ironing the last piece of clothing and headed upstairs to her room with the pale blue silky sheets

Not once did she think of her mother, in another continent  probably thinking of her daughter, trying not to think of her too

The day had come when she couldn’t take it anymore

Taken for granted for being young

Taken for granted for being alone

Taken for granted for being poor

She finally left that house with the room that had a bed with pale blue silky sheets, and she was free