Making the Gaps Wider

She knew my kind.

'You want to show off,' she said.

'If you think you can here, you’re wrong.'

'No no,' I said, 'I only came to play.
I came for the games, the fun.

I don't expect anything else.'

But she was crying. (She'd felt scared.
The boys had been fighting just next door.)

'Leave me alone!' she said.

All her pain

came into me and filled me.

It felt like mine.

'Stop pushing in,' she said.
'Anyway you're late. It's over. 

I'm closing the gates now.'

I should have shut up then

and gone away. But I wanted

the hurting to stop.

The more I tried to explain, 

the more she closed her ears.

And her mouth. And turned away.

I thought I heard her say,

'I never invited you 

to this party.'

Next time I went to look,

they were all playing again

inside her garden.

I suddenly realised

they spoke to each other in secret code.

I went away.