Her words were ghosts.
No one heard her.
She spoke with her pen
and her eyes.
But if asked
and your parents?
She professed
orphan-ship,
though it was truly
a lie.
But one which never failed to entice
a satisfied smile.
Did it matter if
she didn't brush her teeth
or comb her tangled knotted hair?
If she wore clean underwear?
No, hers
was a much different kind of world.
One rarely ever observed,
because no one
even bothered to.
It wouldn't have required glasses
or a microscope
to figure out
what neglect looked like.
Still this child was mostly happy.
She had a vast repository
of ideas and her
imagination for company.
She could be free and ready
to be transported
to the nearest tesseract
or to nestle softly in a high caring cloud.
Her soul as comfortable as a
flannel gown.