Into the Forest and all the Way Through

by Cynthia Pelayo

I am Forgetting to remember your scent, they are forgetting to Remember your name, so I will walk, and I will climb, and I will drive, so that your picture does not fade

The man walks too close behind me The man across the street stops and smiles The man in the car drives slowly behind me The man at the bus stops asks me my name The man in the grocery store asks where I live The man at church touches my shoulder The man at school calls me into his office The man on the bicycle stops ahead of me The man in the parking lot asks if I need a ride

Gas stations during road trips Are in between places, they are The Bermuda Triangles of our Roads, points of fatigue, and Cool air, and yellow headlights Gasoline pumps, windshields Caked in flying insects, and oil Stains.

Why are so many Young women of Color dismissed as Fleeing from home

How many hours Drifted, when they Could have searched? How many days Faded when they Could have examined Probed, questioned, Ransacked the streets Turned inside out And within, and now We don’t have a Witness, nor footage All we have is an Empty hole in the Space where she Should occupy

Was your Kindness smothered in cruelty?

We can only surmise. We can only assume. We can only fill in the gaps Of led astray, and led away.

Two decades it took for them to Excavate, break, tear, and search the Walls in his home. Of course, it all Tested negative, seventeen years is Enough time to clean up any speck Of blood, and undo all evidence of A crime

A year of abuse continued on, and it was 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

A witness contacted the Police, but not until a half-day later. He peeked out his window and saw a man Dragging you into your car at four in the morning, but thought nothing of it.

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

If someone is holding a match to Strings that explode, are they Truly innocent?

Social workers from School asked thirty days Later where you were Thirty days floated by And no one thought to See your face, absences Were excused, fabricated

no young Girl should be rewarded with terror in search of adventure

She warned us Many of them Have warned us Many of us Have ignored Them,

If you did not fall, if You did not fly, then Where can you be?

A man from Circle H Saloon said he gave you a ride, Dropping you off, still a walking distance From home. Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone want that? If I ask you To take me home, I expect to be taken home

I should have never become clues for you

Gather around The campfire of crimes committed Against children,

It remains a mystery, they say. But there is no mystery when someone Knows, and others won’t speak,

Shame on Those that cradle those girl’s cries in Their memory.

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

it should never matter what a lady does for work,

a mother’s intuition twists like bloody blades Within veins,

your mother later had to scour where your body was Found to locate a hairpin that she keeps so close like a child,

Daughter, Sister, Friend

gravestone

Last seen holding A suitcase, happy and eager

Were you targeted? Or, unluckily Random.

Your murder as reality show Crime scene, crime news, crime Cruises, but has anyone solved The crime?

We worship the death On screen,

so Many questions, but if the questions Are all answered they cannot profit From your murder

and this is open like a festering Wound that smells of secrets

Can ghosts haunt structures That live only in our memory?

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

We claim her,