We met when we were five,

 It’s like times sand mixed with quick set were she sat and never left,

At least not all of her,

She left behind that piece of her soul, frozen in times concrete mold,

 and now it’s only found Polaroid poses,

She’s lost and she knows it, she grew up never knowing what growth is,

 No one in her life ever guided her light,

so she embraced the dark, cursed the sun and confided in the night life,

now her faint flame flickers, surrounded by hellhounds-

 with indexes connected to hair triggers, hell bound,

 Living in a single wide tin can parked in quicksand

surrounded by cowards with less heart than the tin man

She’s falling apart, she  wants to be a part on something bigger,

her faith’s faded, forsaken she’s shaking and needs a rock,

 She’s on the brink of sinking in the quicksand and she’s looking for a hard place to land,

The heartless always talk the hardest

and in this case the small minded big talk hits the target,

 now she reps her set and all they represent is self destruction,

She feels she’s found her function and self respect

 but doesn’t know the meaning of self or respect,

 When I see her now I’m surprised, she’s a far cry from the girl I met when we were five,

She’s speaks of her past like a past life,

 Life had made her jaded I see her glow has faded so I offer her a flashlight,

she responds with a nod and says, “Yeah right”

 I try to talk about the good old days but she only wants to talk about the bad times,

 goes on tell me that since we seen each other last time she’s had two kids with two men and hasn’t  spoken to her mother, sister, or brother since her dad died,

The last part shatters my glass heart as tears gloss my eyes,

 I start to reminisce about her dad,

He drove a rusted and wrecked truck piled with junk and drunk himself to sleep most nights,

 But that junk man, the town drunk, saved my life when I was just ten months

 My grandma held my lifeless body in her arms in the middle of Cecilia Street

screaming in and out of her native speech,

Yelling into the phone but 911 couldn’t understand her through the panic

and her habit of changing langue between English and Spanish,

That’s when he pulled up in his junk truck

 grabbed the phone with one hand while the other pumped my chest

 The neighbor lady breathed into my mouth on account –

that yesterdays beer was still heavy on his breath,

 They worked until the ambulance came, he pumped my heart she filled my lungs ,

My grandma looked at him and where she stood then he wasn’t a junkman or drunk,

 he was the man who’s hands saved her grandson,

Five years after that day we move into a trailer parked our trailer was parked three spots from that mans lot,

 He didn’t know who I was

but my parents knew him because he still drove that same truck,

 That man saved my life, and when I was his daughter was my first crush,

I was flirting with her before I even knew what a flirt was,

now here we stand and everything has changed, hell she even changed her name,

She answers to “ Candy Girl,” that’s her gang name,

 She feels secure in the thug life but the only thing for sure is they ensure she’s insecure,

Like she needs them, but she needs to see she needs to be free of them,

 I wanna save her, but the years had hardened her heart like the quickset that shelled that part of her

 I fight to break that shell but it’s hard as hell and reinforced by a fortress of destruction of self,

I try but I can’t reach her, She Thinks I’m just another square ,

 She thinks I don’t care and can’t relate but we were raised in the same place

 we just drifted apart I started growing up she was too busy looking down,

I haven’t seen her in years and the years are going fast

 since we seen each other last I became a Husband and a dad,

but thinking back it makes me feel bad, I couldn’t imagine my little girl taking that same path,

 I still pray for her and I can’t say for sure what she’s doing now but somehow, sometime,

I hope she find that girl I met when we were five