Written in eighth grade, half‑awake and half‑stoned, after stepping out of the car with “Lightning Crashes” still echoing in my head. The assignment was due that morning, the deadline already blown, and the teacher furious. I sat down in first period, rode the emotional current of the song, and wrote this poem in ten minutes. It was published exactly as written. Decades later, it remains the only early poem I can still recite from memory.

Through pain and tears,

A child is born.

The beginning of a tale to mourn.

“It is a boy!”

Cries out the doctor.

The nurse gently lays him

In a rocker.

The mother sits and she stares,

Thinking how beautiful his eyes give off glares.

Soon, however,

A tragic loss will begin.

The cops have returned,

To bring the mother back in.

She thinks of everything gone wrong.

Softly she sings her made-up song.

“Dear little baby,

Please be good.

Mother would keep you if she could.

We shall not fret.

Nor shall we cry,

This will not be,

Our final goodbye.”

Little did she know,

The baby would die soon.

The child pronounced dead,

Just before noon.

He was born,

With a heart malfunction,

When told the news,

The mother made an assumption.

The next day,

She was found in her cell.

Her life ended in her home,

Jail.

The doctors stood,

Examining the corpse.

Another came in with a thick report.

The shock sent everyone,

at once to the ground,

To learn her child,

Was not the one found.