'Twas a balmy evening on that village square,
On the path, a little girl she chalked,
A hopscotch grid, for friends to share,
Innocently unaware she was being stalked.

From behind a smoke stained curtain dead eyes stared,
On his warped mind he hatched a lurid plan,
In which a childhood dream would not be spared,
From the wrath of this decrepit evil man.

He placed some money in her little palm,
An invitation to his shop for sweets,
To the monster she did sadly warm,
Fell to the lure of candy coated treats.

The evening shadows moved without a sound,
Passersby were laughing unaware,
Inside her muffled whimperings resound,
A deed most horrid, vile beyond compare.

Shattered she emerged, her smiles not there,
Lost in his disgusting sweaty sheets,
Her story to the world she never shared,
Silence bribed, by a bag of sticky sweets.

Now time has passed and healed, but not as such,
His dirty smell still lingers in her nose,
She scrubbed and scrubbed but can't remove his touch,
Etched sadness on her face, still sorrow shows.

Only memories now of girls at play,
Those woeful songs of grief, she's often sung them,
His sunken bones interred in rotten clay,
In life or death, not one good bone among them !