The Fun Young Swing

Sunny skies, flowers in full bloom

Children in the park, filled with happiness and laughter.

I looked at them and pleaded as I creaked

Slowly in to motion, feeling a gust of wind.

Come here and sit on me,

I’ll take you to great heights,

As I fill you with bubbly laughter

Through every link in my chains.

Suddenly darkness! Clouds gathered in gloom,

Dark figures filled the park, a lonely silhouette-

A shape shifter stood out;

I looked on in dread, fear spreading

Through every link in my chains; my seat, stiff

From the day’s work; Aching I looked on,

Pleading with unseeing eyes,

Don’t come near, don’t sit on me.

I know you’ll take me under, deep

Into cavernous places;

You’ll break my chains, detach me

From reality; you’ll break my seat

Until nothing but splinters remain.

I can feel your sweaty face,

Your ravaging hands,

The weight of your large base

Tearing through my planks.

I can feel my chains giving way,

Tearing away from the reality

That is mine, your weight pulling me down;

Your breath acrid fills my very being

As I fall deep in to the abyss

Of a never-ending universe;

Filled with darkness, the voices of beasts,

The smell of disgust, the taste of a thousand

Fetid corpses; an eternity of this.

I know you’re gone, now that morn has come;

But I dread the evening sun;

Bringing with it the shape shifter, that silhouette,

That destroyer of dreams, that killer of innocence.

Here I am, a fun young swing

Destined to spread laughter,

To take children to newer heights;

But your abuse leaves me broken and

Desolate, snatching the laughter

From every child who walks the park. Ever.

Note: I wrote a prequel to this poem "Give Me Strength" back in 2007. Ten years later I had to revisit it and make it mine once again.