Trick or Treat Drive for Homeless Children Ends Thursday

October 29, 2013,

Please redouble your efforts to collect items that are useful to the Children of Haven for Hope including infants. Please take your donations to the Shambhala Meditation Center at 1114 S. Saint Mary’s between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. Oct. 31, 2013.

Haunted By Ghosts of the Past
By Lorraine Benedetto

“Mommy, please,
I want to be a princess again
just like Cinderella –
I need my crown and pretty pink skirts
and my pair of golden shoes.”

Baby, I wish you could
but we no longer have them –
when daddy died we had no choice
but move from house to shelter beds
I couldn’t save
your lovely Cinderella suit.

“But you could get me a new one,
I saw them in the window
of that store just three blocks up –
the one with golden pumpkins
and sparkling spider webs.
Can’t we get one there?”

Sweetie, we can’t go there,
I don’t have what they need.
I know it’s hard to understand
but things just aren’t the same.
Last year we had a home and clothes
and yummy snacks and friends.
Today we are alone.

“But Halloween is coming!
There’s ghosts and witches everywhere
and all the kids…….
It’s okay, mommy
please don’t cry again,
I didn’t mean to make you sad.
I never liked to trick-or-treat,
who needs to play those silly games?
I’d rather beg for real food –
than candy wrapped
in stupid black and orange packs.”

Oh, baby, I’m so sorry
to strip away your youth.
Someday I’ll make it up to you,
someday we’ll find a way
to get our life on track.
Someday we’ll have a home again,
with jack-o-lanterns on the porch.
But baby, please,
just
please

don’t hate me.