Into the Forest and all the Way Through

by Cynthia Pelayo

I am forgetting your scent they are forgetting to

remember your name

why are so many young women of color dismissed as fleeing from home and those adults not alarmed that

we don’t have a witness, nor footage all we have is an empty hole in the space where she should occupy

a hiker found her a mile away from where she was last seen, in an area called Picture Rocks, and how could anyone picture that their child would be found as a pile of rubble

not until a teacher found chemical burns on my skin that I could finally tell the story of the little sister I had and the demons who threw her away and told me never to tell

the only thing on her body were silver circlet earrings which were unable to ward away the monster that killed her

what good is checking on your neighbors if you are unwilling to save them?

You skipped school that day for the beach, and no young girl should be rewarded with terror in search of adventure

Why would anyone want that? If I ask you to take me home, I expect to be taken home not dissolved into asphalt where my things will be later found, analyzed and interpreted I should have never become clues for you

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

Show me more, the fields the killing fields, where your head ached, and your body slumped kidnapped and decomposed, human fertilizer, harsh isn’t it?

so many questions, but if the questions are all answered they cannot profit from your murder

Your mother died waiting for him to tell the right tale, about the cold and the darkness and what lies on that five-acre property that man owns.

Your father lives in the same house, waiting for the truth to knock on his door.

and if there’s anyone who could know how to spin a lie how to weave a web, hide a body, it would be someone who dances with the law

but only those insects know where your face is now, as that was missing when they found you there

How far can bones travel down river until they turn around?