suspended in place, yet
falling through waves of unimagined horror
    she flails her limbs,
her mind spiralling backwards four decades
    to confining crib bars
and small spaces that cramped her soul.

    eyes unnaturally wide,
she surveys a vast grey sea of uncertainty
    and finds she is as lonely
now as then, as abandoned and vulnerable
    and ultimately alone
in a universe filled with silent mockery.

    even so, as before, she sings
out of tune with a world out of synch with her.
    and the music fills the void,
lifting the spirits sucked down by circumstance.
    she remembers their faces:
the ones who failed to recognize her here.

    the music stops and silence
crushes her hope, but only for an instant,
    for she will not be silenced.
she will rise as she is meant to from this Earth
    and meet those who forgot her
mid-air, between what is and ever should have been.