What happened to those days of happy playing, the innocence of pure dirt and spring water, letting raindrops fall in our eyes, and the gods of little girls?  That gravel road seems distant, as does the smell of that hot kitchen, and those angel arms that reached to hold us.  We ate push pops on the porch, tamed the mighty jungle, chased thieves around the world, and worshipped gods of little girls.  The sound of thunder in the distance, the butterflies that swarmed, and the colors on the horizon were the gods of little girls.  And we grew up thinking they’d always be there – that those we relied on would always care — and never gave a second thought, because they made sure that we were taught to have faith in the gods of little girls.

And then one day those stars in the sky were ripped asunder, and who had we to turn to but our little girl gods?  And even when their voices faded further, we clung to them as real when others were frauds, till finally that fateful day came along when we gave up on the petty promises of little girl gods.

The women we now see in the mirror reflect back to us the beauty of hardness – the diamonds cut from coal and the sand squeezed into pearls.  We find our comforts in other ways – no longer on the school bus or in the tractor tire.  We have our vices now, instead of little girl gods.

Still, we squint through the haze, dreaming of that distant place where we followed the trail marked on a home-made map and danced around the trees, where we fought with claws and scowls and loved each other no less, before the sky was ripped apart … before we knew the truth about our gods.