Witch Trials by: Kaela Burke

And in a heaven long since burned to ash the little girl sat in the cinders, soot staining her white dress and tears tracking paths through the dirt on her face as they streamed down her cheeks.
You didn't bother to save her from the pyre you built as she lay in your womb.
You didn't bother to save her from the rope you tied her up with throughout your transition from one family to another.
It doesn't matter that you weren't aware what the kindling and old newspapers and logs and planks were going towards,
what each verbal lashing you watched her take, administered, would do to her,

what he would do to her. 

It doesn't matter that you were tied to the post too, that you were burning right next to her because 

your actions, your turns left and right or lack thereof got you both on trial for witchcraft, got both of you damned to miserable lives and then. 

Then you convulsed, pointed to her with all the hatred you harbored for yourself and without a backwards glance sold her as the devil you had become. 

And so the girl sat in a heaven long since burned to ash, and tears tracked paths through the dirt on her face as they streamed down her cheeks.