She never had a chance.
A child for a mother
but with none
of the lightness
of youth.
Her own childhood
stolen a thousand times
in dirty rooms.
That’s when she started to burn
it ate her insides
and made her wild
with the force of trying to flee
her own skin.
She roared
and we all heard it
as song.
The fast madness of jazz
was good and loud
but she couldn’t scrape off
the remembering.
She never had a chance.
When she died
she was
already ash.