Jane Doe: Revision

Into the cavernous confines of your hollow mind,
Into the echoing insides of your empty wallet,
The therapist, the reporter,
The watcher and I
Dig deep,

Trying to decipher
Any promising relation, potential association,
Any, if at all,
Possible connection
Between the eighteen years of breadcrumbs
Scattered and now, somehow,
And for some reason, forgotten.

On the TV, they rumor.
They speculate.
They think
You seem like that kinda girl,
The type they’ve seen before,
The type left
Alone
At night.

The Latch-Key-Kid-Special, they say.

Deserted too often,
Ignored too early.

If your father
Had been my father,
I can’t help but think
How mad he’d be
To see your hand-cut filthy bangs
Brush against my face.
He would agonize over
How and what I’d been eating,
How and where I’d been sleeping.

So I need to know.
You need to tell me.

What happened to your mother, Jane?
Your father too? Did they get a chance
To tell you what could happen
To a girl like you, to any Once-Upon-A-Time-Girl
Who, by chance, took an off-the-trail hike?
Did they take the time to warn you?
Take the time to tell you
About cross dressing wolves and poison apple romance?
Did she ever, even just once,
Tell you a story
About a girl
Named Gretel
Who found a nightmare waiting in the woods?

The networks
They think they know your name now,
Your first and your middle
And although both fall on ears equally unrecognized,
They repeat them just the same,
Overlapping and rushed,
One directly after another.

Hearing your name
That way
Makes me angry.
Makes it sound like
You’re in trouble,
And it’s all your fault.
Makes me worry that
Regardless of what you remember,
And what you don’t,
You will never be able to explain how one night you fell asleep on the street,
In the middle of Midtown, with no shoes and a dirty face, outside and cold,
Stretched out on pieces of cardboard, dreaming.