They say it takes a village to raise a child.
But what if the village is broken beyond repair?
Fundamentally flawed
The kind you can't fix with kind words
Like putting a band-aid on the place a knife goes.
What becomes of a child
That is raised by such a village?
They'd stare no doubt.
Ignoring the bright smile painted like petals
Delicate, misty and fragile.
They'd follow the child around
Waiting for the answer to shout out.
But the child will keep the painted smile
They will bow and laugh and dance
Like a dainty flower
They won't let anyone see
The broken mess they can't be
It goes like this.
The tiny village raises a child
And glares
Waiting for a weakness they can find
It goes like this
The tiny village raises a tiny child
And it's all drowning in a striking shade of red wine.
The child will leave the village one day.
They whisper in barely contained hate
The ungrateful child will leave one day.
But for now, they smile.
Under the weight of a hundred stares
They carry it
All too brave
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And they walk the paths of a dusty village.
With houses built and people broken
They walk the paths of a quiet village
And fill it with their humming voice
Like a bird searching for a house
They fill the emptiness
And ignore the echo they feel inside.
The child is brave
The child is frail
With a painted smile and a humming voice
The child is frail
But that is the price to pay
Born on glass shards
Born in glass houses
All too broken
All too broken
That is the price to pay
When a village raises a child.
There will come a future from far.
The child taller than the skies
With a gaze that still paints
And a smile that still shakes
The child will walk the paths of the village
With steps bigger than the ones they trace
They will go to the house stuck in every dream
The start of everything they see
And they will knock.
A jarring sound in an empty void
They will knock
All too brave
And they will smile
In the face of everything they left behind.
Fingers stall on the door
To let them in or to kick them out?
Ungrateful.
Something whispers in the air
But a mother's heart is all too big.
So the fingers open up a small entrance
One more fit for a child
Yet it says something about them.
How they easily fit into the broken spaces they left behind
How they belong to the messy picture hung on the wall.
The future will come and they will go back to their past
Wondering how nothing ever changes in the place they call home.
With a bleeding heart and a painted smile
They sit in front of their mother
Being avoided like an illness
Stings and burns
Yet they push on
Look at me.
Something screams in them
They only whisper it
Look at me, mother.
The future will come and the child will ask
Why their mother couldn't be the only hand.
It takes a village to raise a child.
She would sob
And they would laugh and smile
Until their mouth carries the sharpness of a knife.
Yes, mother.
This is what happens
When a village raises a child.
