Into the Forest and all the Way Through

by Cynthia Pelayo

left to wonder what could they have done differently, if anything. This grief, this loss, for those who are missing, is agonizing because for many there will never be answers, just a lifetime of desperate questions.

Was your Kindness smothered in cruelty?

The things they call us After we were flesh and blood, remains, What remains.

Now those three children know the way of Questions, and the emptiness of answers, and The disappointment that when the doorbell Rings or when the phone vibrates in their hand It is never their mother

So many men say they do not know What happened to the now missing women who were once under their care.

and this is all awful, in Knowing a young girl will for eternity Have her final words trapped in her voice Box.

Can ghosts haunt structures That live only in our memory?

let’s bury The words “high-risk lifestyle” and instead replace them with The man who murdered you, a man, who is not just a man, a Serial killer

and let’s imagine that in another reality That you are living a life, a full life, a blessed life, But we know that blessing is a lie that swallowed You up in that empty space of time

she always said “Mommy, I’m going to give You the stars,” and I would say “No mí hija, tu eres mi estrella” And now at night when I look Up into the celestial body of Creation I only see darkness