ANNIE (a true story)

I got a new doll named Annie
On Christmas of `78
She went everywhere with me
She became my closest mate

Soon it would be my fourth birthday
I’d get more dresses for her to keep
She had eyes of blue to match her shoes
That closed when she went to sleep

I had a cradle right beside my bed
So I could keep watch while she slept
I was a good mother just like my mum
& held her when she wept

She had long blond hair prone to knots
& would cry when a comb came near
One morning I woke & picked Annie up
From her slumber in the cradle near

But Annie’s eye - it would not open
I tried to wake her up to play
I asked her why her eye was closed
But she kept looking at me that way

Dad told me he’d fix it – ‘Just like brand new’,
‘So don’t you worry your pretty head’
I left Annie with dad rest assured
That he would fix her as he’d said

And so he did, her eye was fine
We played all day till we dropped
I said goodnight with a smile but
When I laid her down I stopped

Annie couldn’t go to sleep at all
As her eye wide open it stared –
I tried to shut it but it would not budge,
Not a flicker of movement was faired

“Daddy, Daddy, what have you done”?
“You’ve made things even worse!”
I ran into his arms with Annie
Hoping he could lift the curse

To which he replied that he’d tried
But that he’d had no luck
So he thought he’d “use some glue”
And now her eye was stuck!

I didn’t want to play with Annie anymore,
Something it wasn’t quite right
You can’t sleep with one eye open
You can’t wake with an eye shut tight

But before I said goodbye to Annie
She talked to me of how she felt,
How it was to see through her eyes
& the misfortune she’d been dealt

She told me of how she’d come undone,
How daddy had stuck her together with glue
& that someday it might just happen to me;
- That all things old were once brand new

So we parted ways Annie & I
The next day she went out in the bin
I went to sleep that night an innocent
And woke up in a world of sin