Once Upon a Time Poems

All I Wanted Was a Pen

I was little maybe six,
All my playthings were twigs.
Inside me I had a yen
What I wished for was a pen.
My eyes found it in a flash
Slouched in the neighborhood trash
The dance of the heart began
I ran for the broken pen.
“Girls with those things don’t play,”
Papa said and took my pen away.

Dreadful winds leave memories...
When only pens were in my dreams,
Fierce men invaded our hut...
Savage, smeared with blood,
In boots and clothes of green,
They shattered, scattered everything.
Mama and Papa were slain,
And thrown out under the rain.
People said it was my evil lot
I had left open the door of the hut.
Their words set me in a spin.
Was I the true assassin?

For years, in the fields I hoed,
For every bite I begged and pawed,
I didn’t care for clothes or men,
All I wished for was a pen.
Then oceans moved, lands drifted,
The world changed, the curse is lifted.
Gone will be the power of knives,
Silenced women, bruised wives.
I’m strong now, I have a plan,
My words reach out through my pen.