Analysis of Anorexic Girl

(Samaritan days... this kid called me every shift for 4 years)

Sometimes she whispers in my ear,
a tapestry of pain and fear
whose warp and weft weave haunted days
and nightmare dreams, through woeful sobs
and blooded screams; till phantoms from
a private hell enshroud me in
a chilling spell.

I’m on a tour
within her mind, where those outside
are breaking in and every thought
accuses sin in saddest voice
man ever heard.

Midst grief defying
spoken word, she can only run
and hide, cringe ever deeper down
inside, avoiding some imagined
threat from friend – or foe she’s never
met.

I know more of her than of
my own, my wasted waif who walks
alone. I want to ride inside
her head and sweep it clean of all
its dread, but will not know her when
we meet; walk past her, crying in
the street.

Until till she finds the strength
to lay the horrors of the past
and scream, “I’m me! I’m running free!”
there’ll be no woman sweet asleep,
but just the child who I hear weep.