Hair black as night

Eyes red as dawn

Contrary to her sisters

Blonde and innocent by day

This is a girl

Who has all her life

Been locked away,

And so she will remain,

Until her death-day.



One



Blue runes

That sparkle and gleam

Around the room,

Forever trapping me.

I run and run and run

Trying to get away

A light in the distance

A scream, disturbing my dreams

Crushing my hope

Shattering all prospects of escape

Herding me back,

Back to the circle of runes,

Slowly killing me.



Two



I'd not always been fated to this doom, this Hell

Another pawn to this curse

Binding me to war and death.

Except, I'd been but eight and stupid

Gullible, eager to impress

Nine years later, I'm stuck

Stuck in a cell with nothing to do

But pine over my mistakes.



Three



Ebony locks

Flowing down to my waist

Face wet with tears

Proving it possible to cry a river.

You'd pity me, that little girl

Until you saw

The bright eyes of red

And run,

To avoid becoming walking dead.



Four



Strange lights take up the most space

Hurting my eyes, causing fuzzy shapes

To take the place of reality

I close my eyes, hoping to find peace

But my eyelids flash orange inside

My pupils dilate black

I think I see new shapes

Deliberately moving towards me,

But I'm not sure.

Yet then it happens -

I see.

I know.



Five



"Grandma?"

No, it can't be

If feels wrong,

Off somehow.

Her aura, tainted?

This is the reason

Why the outside is forbidden to me

Because I can see things

People squirrel away

Secrets no one should see.



Six



One, two

If I can hop to ten

She will love me.

I'm tolerated

- I do have friends -

But I'm kept at a distance.

They do show through

Faces drawn glow with the tale

The knowledge that I

- Elizabeth Anna Ismeree -

That I'm something

Something to be guarded against,

Something different.

I fall.



Seven



I started disobeying Mum at two

Showing wisdom far beyond my age

Displaying shows of witchcraft

At an alarming stage.

It began with a phone number, a fortune

A little "How do you do?"

But greed pushed me forward -

Not mine, but theirs.

Always theirs.

Those petty human things.



Eight



A man in white

A woman in red

And a young boy covered all in black

Governed me daily

- as a world leader would do -

Do this, do that

And at night slyly passed me bills of two.

In return, all I was bade do

Was give them service

When they found themselves with need great.



Nine



Then, another man came

His hand of solitaire

He played me like a card

Thinking it another game

A love of that red woman

- oh, what's her name? -

I sang my tune

An obedient bird -

Although, in truth,

My price was, by far, less

Information whistled away

For only a pence.

And so I was whisked off to my cage.



Ten



Alas, the next thing I knew

I was ferried away again

To my poor little prison

Across the sea.

All this happened to me

Because I saw colors

And a number of things

I wasn't made -bred- to see.



Eleven



That first time

A little old lady

- Her gray hair streaked with gold -

All dipped in green paid me a visit.

"Oh, girl, that shouldn't be,"

She threw me a wink, but, soon,

Her demeanor would change.

Ever so quickly.



Twelve



Gnarled hands knotting my locks

Ripping away strands

Painfully

Looking me in the eye

With a force beyond recognition

One I hadn't wished

To fall prey to.



Thirteen



A sharp pain jolts me back

Back to me

Liz, age seventeen

But the little miss is gone

No, being dragged down

And I'm pulled away

Away, away, away

By a mysterious young man.



Fourteen



Outside, the air is sweet

The first breaths of it I've had in years

Smelling of flowers and, I'd guess, honey

Or maybe that's my own mind's eye

For rain is pouring down.

I turn to look

At that boy, my savior.



Fifteen



Upon inspection

He is indeed a man

His face pale

Sweating from the run

But he has no color

No color that I can see

And there's no reason for me to be in this place

There's nothing binding,

Binding me.