secret garden

 To the secret garden–Eloise made her escape.

Away from her wicked stepmother–taunting her with cruel fate.

In the garden, so lush and so green.

Eloise smiles wide, taking in the beautiful scene.

Her worries now gone and forgotten,

She ran down the path lined with pretty little flowers.

Past the trees where apples have gone rotten.

Who was she today?

Enough decisions! It’s time to play!

Elosie was a Queen for no rhyme or reason, 

Declaring, “Off with your head!”

If a peasant commits treason.

Maybe she’s a swashbuckling pirate,

Counting her treasure and setting sails for a new course.

Perhaps she’ll be a pilot,

Or a noble knight sitting upon his magnificent horse.

She’ll run away to the circus.

To dance with the clowns and tame a lion.

Look! Way up there!

On the trampeze– she goes flying!

Dusk has come– as day turns into night.

It’s time to go home, before there is only moonlight.

Although she dreaded to go home,

Eloise distracted herself, pretending that she’s a grumpy garden gnome.

Even through the beatings and lecture,

our brave little girl never once cracked under the pressure.

“Tomorrow-” Eloise thought,

“I’ll visit my garden, without getting caught.”

The next morning, Eloise woke up chipper.

“Today will be the best one yet!”

She jumped up to put on her slippers.

From her room–she tiptoes along the carpet

To find papa’s gunsafe, her eyes locked on target.

She finds her stepmother down in the kitchen,

Plucking feathers and beheading a chicken.

Elosie ever so small, raise her papa’s heavy gun.

With a click of the hammer,

not once did Eloise stammer.

Her father rushed in with such haste, 

to see what was the matter.

Only to find his betrothed,

body so limp–so much blood splattered.

He looked to Eloise while she held the smoking gun,

“Dear God child! What have you done?!”

While her father wailed and weeped,

Elosise never made a sound–

Not one peep.

She raised the gun to her papa’s unsuspecting head…

Then– BANG!

He dropped dead.

Elosie looked at what he had done,

A smile across her face, she dropped the gun.

Going to change into her finest dress,

Eloise skipped merrily to the garden, 

knowing soon– she will have someone to impress.

Swinging quietly, Elosie thought,

“I’m finally free! My last fight was fought!”

She hummed happily while the blue birds sang,

Until– that is when she heard the garden door burst open with a loud clang.

Men in uniforms, carrying large guns came.

Strange men in funny white coats did the same.

Eloise may have replaced one prison from another,

But she knew deep down–

She was always free of her wicked stepmother.

-C.R. Phoenix-