Into the Forest and all the Way Through

by Cynthia Pelayo

Into the forest and all the way through

and your breath Oh! Your breath how your breath catches in your throat and you fall all the way down

Her family continues the search. Her father can’t stop looking.

Your father claims you are a runaway

dad said not to speak

picked her up? picked her out,

the night is an origami figure, a contortionist, bending into itself.

Will you ever talk? Will anyone ever talk? Can anyone ever tell us what happened, or are those lips still frozen tight by deviancy?

and mommy was supposed to be home by now, but awful things swim in the trunks of stranger’s cars

The littlest doe, doe-eyed, Jane Doe. I want to paint your nails, red, but not the red that stains your cream-colored knit sweater I want to play dollhouse with you, but not the moldy, brutal mildewed house whose basement you were found. I want to comb your hair, your beautiful hair, I can only imagine it was smooth as a spider web, but only those insects know where your face is now, as that was missing when they found you there

Your children said you had the intensity of an amusement park, singing and swinging them, making homemade tortillas, and writing them love letters your own father, a private investigator could find almost any brilliant star but he could not spot yours in the dark sky, when you decided not to wait, and instead walk, maybe hitchhiked into a constellation

said you were the prettiest and the quietest when you cried that night,

Age at disappearance: 3 days old

God.

Blessed by the sun and damned by everything in between.

Listen, you can hear the echo say I do not want to die this way I just want to see my mother I just want to see my father I want to see my daughter I just want to see my son Please, I just want to live I just want to go home It hurts, please don’t Please let me go…