Elise's Poetry
The Night Children
Beware the Night Children
Small bodies that clang through the streets,
The Night Children were made
From the iron they drowned in.
Behold the Night Children,
Innocent things the Money Men
Captured and cauterized
To melt into machines.
Do avoid the Night Children
Who will beat you
With their covetous metal arms and
Kick you with their iron legs.
Because the Night Children
Are envious of you
You take the metal
From which their bodies were made.
They have been fed to the world and the world has fed you.
Believe that the Night Children
Are scared,
The Night Children do not want
To hurt you.
They do not want to smell like fuel,
But roses and
They are afraid of becoming a statue of rust
Because
A Night Child cannot play in the rain.
The Night Children miss their toys and friends who have forgotten them.
But the Night Children keep working.
Turning their own dials
Cranking their own levers
Unlike you, the Night Children do not grow up.
Become a Night Child.
Grow lead in your muscles
Let your veins flow with black engine grease,
Let it weigh your shoulders down.
Help the Night Children
With your flowers and sweet things.
But remember that nothing
Will help them forget.
The Mirror Children
A man sneers at a Mirror Child
And he strides away.
The Mirror Child breaks a little
But he doesn’t see it.
The Mirror Children are made from the same glass
That hangs above your bathroom sink.
They are more fragile than a flower stem,
Yet they’ll never understand why.
The Mirror Children wonder if
They will ever repair their fissures.
They see even bigger mirrors that are
More shattered, too scattered.
The Mirror Children must be careful.
They can’t have darkness shroud in around them.
If they crack, they might break
And no one wants a broken mirror.
So the Mirror Children pretend that their fractures are not there.
Is it bad luck?
Asks the Mirror Child,
As they have heard the sharp whispers
From those who look at them just to see themselves.
You tell them no.
You tell them that everyone has cracks.
You tell them even you have
A long earthquake fault down your own mirror,
But it went away a few years ago.
The Mirror Children smile a jagged one of glass and say
They do not want to be themselves anymore
Not a Mirror Child but a pond.
A pond reflects the sky,
In fact, a pond has no idea what goes on down here.
A pond can only see the sky.
And the best thing is
A pond will not break.
The Golden Children
Do they look pretty?
The Golden Child asks
Will you tell them that they are pretty?
The Golden Children are not like regular children.
They are full of character and talent
And they are just so lucky to be here.
Do they look pretty?
The Golden Children are the prettiest in all the world and
Everyone loves them.
They are to be bought and invested in
As long as they are loved.
If they go outside, they do not feel the sun
But the heat of the world.
They melt so easily under the tall blue lights and
If they melt away enough,
The world will see that underneath,
They are not Golden Children.
It is only a thin layer of artificial gold-colored paint that they wear,
And it cracks and stretches as they grow.
Some of them try to inject it inside
But it won’t go in.
Because if the Golden Children are unbeautiful
No one will love them.
The Golden Children are told
They are Mud Children underneath.
So they are painted and groomed to perfection
By the Men.
And the Women are jealous of them
Of the way the Men look
At the Golden Children.
A Golden Child wants nothing but to
Return as a Mud Child.
Mud is soft, and healthy
Nothing about Mud is fake or fraudulent.
Although the Golden Children are scared
That they are not really Mud Children
Underneath.
They do not know that their mud
Has hardened to grey cement.