Into the Forest and all the Way Through

by Cynthia Pelayo

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

He dismissed the thought, and so what good is checking on your neighbors if you are unwilling to save them?

In a shallow grave. Your skin smelled of oranges, bright and warmed by the sun, streaks of luminous hair blemished by earth, tainted by the touch of someone who did not love you.

It remains a mystery, they say but there is no mystery when someone knows, and others won’t speak,

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

It’s grueling to think of a beautiful woman, gone dead, skull fractured, questions, so many questions, but if the questions are all answered they cannot profit from your murder

what do we know if all that we know is that there was once a girl, a girl unfound