they heard her scream

i.

it was a boy and a girl in an alley with cigarette smoke

late at night on a friday

and they heard her scream.

 

it was her mother, her cries of mourning, her screams

for her youngest daughter that echoed

into the rainy morning and pierced through the

people clad all in black and made the priest momentarily

lose his words, caught in his throat, as he heard

[and saw]

the mother in the front row with her husband and children, yelling out

to God for her daughter.

 

ii.

it was his left hand that griped her throat and held her

against the cement wall, covered in graffiti, as she

pleaded and cried

as he pushed closer against her and reached down.

 

it was the barman in the back corner of the reception who felt

like he shouldn't be there, but had been asked by the parents

of the girl whose body he had found

in the dirty back alley behind his bar, late at night

when he heard her scream.

 

iii.

it was the force of him going into her that made her go limp, hoping

and praying that it would all end soon, that the pain

would just stop as he looked at her with an evil grin,

cigarette held between his lips.

 

it was her older sister that stopped eating, stopped

talking, stopped attending college, gave up on life

when she heard the news via a late night phone call and came home

to find the boy, who became obsessed with the idea of revenge

because the police weren't doing enough to find him in her mind.

 

iv.

it was the scream that echoed through the night

when he pulled out the knife, glinting silver in the moonlight

and she became afraid as he held it against her throat

that they heard and sent them running to the abandoned alley, empty

except for the body of a young girl,

throat slit.

 

it was the ones who heard her scream and found her

that never forgot.