I know the girl with the ashes in her hair,
the one with the dreams piled like logs, the one
who goes up in smoke because her daddy promised her the world
and who is gone, as fast as he came.

I know what it feels like to be those morphing feet,
those unseeding pumpkins, to return to a mouse from a stallion,

to pray and pray in someone’s locked room
that that someone, somewhere
will find you.

– Penney Knightly