A little girl hummed a happy tune and skipped down the sidewalk.
Her hair was as black as ebony, with a little pink bow to match her socks.
Her emerald eyes shone with a carefree brightness,
And the solitary figure off to her side noticed all this.
The little girl smiles to herself and starts to sing about the sun,
She wondered what it would be like to fly like the birds; oh what fun.
She has the stem of an orange lily in her fist,
And the solitary figure off to the side notices all this.

There was a muffled scuffling followed by a small gasp,
Then the air was still; on the sidewalk all that remained was a lily
And a little pink bow with a silver clasp.
Hours go by, and nobody seems concerned,
Not until night falls and she doesn’t return.
They find her a week later, under an old oak tree,
Her body was covered in dark bruises, deep cuts…and she could hardly breathe.
The little girl’s mother was holding her and crying,
But the little girl could only think of how close she had been to dying.
They wanted to find the criminal, oh how hard they were trying,
But the little girl could only think of how close she had been to dying.

In the middle of the night, a young woman woke in a state of despair,
She snapped open her emerald eyes and smoothed her dark hair.
The bruises and the cuts had long since faded,
But her mind spun with the memories of how those wounds had been created.
An evil grin, the steel grip,
The grubby cloth pulled tight over her lips;
The images seemed so real, so clear,
Even after all that time, they were not dulled, and neither was her fear.
She can only go back to when she was skipping down the sidewalk without a care,
And life was turned upside down for the little girl with the orange lily and
The little pink bow in her ebony hair.