Poems & Short Stories

Hold Their Hand

It started as such a normal day,
I had such a normal life,
But all of that changed when we went to the fair,
We were a family going in but a mess coming out.

I had let go of his hand for not even a second,
I had turned my head when I heard a woman screaming for her daughter,
She must have been a distraction because the police did not find her,
She kept my attention long enough to have someone take my son.

My wife came back with our six month old daughter,
As I frantically look for our six year old son,
There where police everywhere by the end of the night,
But my little boy was not...

As the hours passed we waited for a ransom call that never came,
The days passed and the trail went cold and my marriage did as well.
All we did was fight and when I said it wasn't my fault,
She would say I didn't hold his hand.

A year went by and the last thread of my marriage was the daughter we shared,
She doesn't remember her brother,
And we agreed that it was for the best that he didn't exist for her,
But all it did was break my heart more each day.

The more time that went on the older she got,
It had been 3 years since my six year old was kidnapped.
She didn't want to hold my hand anymore but I'm still unsure,
I let her go and see my wife glaring at me.

Hours later we finally went home and I knew what was to come,
My wife sweetly told our three year old to play in her room,
The second the door clicked she attacked me with profanity and screaming,
I couldn't take it anymore and sat there silently.

As she yelled at me one last time and left the room,
I hung my head down again when I heard some shuffling at the door,
And I looked and saw my little girl,
And smiled as I realized that a still had a hand to hold.

Written June 11th, 2018