Same Old Story

She's the girl who died last week,
Now everybody knows her name.
Her picture's in the hallway
Taken before she lost her way
Her eyes twinkle and her
Smile rounds two childlike cheeks.
She wears the locket of a boy who
Left, so long ago now
The ghosts of her tears
Echo in his throat.

There are no pictures
Of the girl with the monster for a heart
Nobody to blame, now nobody remembers
Or sees what they should have seen -
The hunched shoulders, the pale face,
The constant feeling of disgrace
Just an old picture in the hallway
With an old smile to be their memory
For once they had taught her
It took just a year to destroy her.

School closed for the day,
They cry for the papers,
The cameras, the ones who never knew her
They cry for the funeral,
The memories they barely remember.
The coffin is closed. It turns out,
Too late, that death is not pretty.
Alone in my grief, six months too many
Along the same path
I cry for her, or perhaps just for me.