(Dedicated to the foster children of the world)
Shuffling place to place
Smiling strangers staring
Stuck in a shell sharing
Sorrow with my soul
Silence a treasure saved for
Sudden shifts house to house
Speech stifled by a system that
Sends me to so-called
Saviours hissing salvation
Searing me from my security, my house, mother’s
Sacrifice for sweet sensation is me
So dismissed I shield my sanity and struggle to
Survive the stupid bureaucracy that
Sucks me southward instead of raising me upward to
Secure my place in society as
Someone who can
Shine.
Copyright 1997 Melanie S. Hatter
Also seen in The Humanist, May/June 1997
