Bread Crumbs
Our ‘inner child’ hums a carefree melody. Sometimes knowingly and sometimes without a thought, we leave this inner child to die at the hands of an indifferent world. Mischa Pearson laments the loss of the inner child in her touching piece ‘Breadcrumbs’.
The giggle of a boy breaks through my mantra of “if I’d only been” when the father walks past with him in hand. I see you in him. I see you with your young boy. It was the lie that kept me caged in your sorrow, your loss; a depraved deception to coerce her, my inner child, into revealing her sore spaces. She peered out from behind my walls, and you showed her a smile that said it was safe. So, she followed. Your breadcrumbs drew circles in the dark. Still, she followed. Around and around in the wilderness, she hummed to us so sweetly.
We both felt the knife go in. The sting. The sharp inhalation echoed through the trees as she looked up at me with tear filled eyes, like tiny pink hammocks in the rain. “I’m scared,” she said, without speaking. I looked back and told her to be brave when you interrupted, “I’ll help! I’ll help you find the monster that did this!” You took her hand and under the black blanket of the night, searched until her legs gave way beneath her. I called out, but found your hand curled over my mouth, “Shhhh” your whisper carried on the wind. “You didn’t mean to do it.” You said. Silence fell like a thick fog. I felt her. I felt her slip away, and you just stood there, looking down over her small lifeless body, and while still holding the knife, you said, “I’m sorry this happened,” and walked away.
Sometimes, even now, I visit the woods where you left her for dead. And if I listen closely enough, I can still hear her humming, still searching for breadcrumbs.