The Daughter | Teen Ink

The Daughter

February 3, 2022
By winter275 SILVER, Seoul, Other
winter275 SILVER, Seoul, Other
7 articles 2 photos 0 comments

In front of the soldiers they stood,

a mother and daughter in rags.

The soldiers came to take the girl,

to the gas chambers for a shower. 


The mother’s heart stopped,

started pleading to the men,

but they ignored her

and grabbed the girl instead.


The mother lunged forward,

tried to free her little one,

and for it received a knock to the head.


The girl is crying now,

trying to go to help her mother:

to shield her, to hug her, to love her.

While being dragged away by the men,

she far too weak to win. 


From the mother came a scream,

and she found the strength to break free,

and she started towards her little girl.


Their eyes met,

mother and daughter,

glimmering of love and hopes and dreams and

of a peace that could have been.


But shattered in a second,

when two gunshots filled the air,

and the mother lay dead,

under her daughter's tear-shocked stare.


The author's comments:

There are subtle shifts in function and perspective throughout the stanzas. The first stanza is narrative. The second and third are the mother's perspective. The fourth shifts to the daughter, then the fifth returns to the mother. The sixth portrays the connection that links mother and daughter, which is broken in the final (narrative) stanza.


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