Sarah Whitney

Have you noticed the girl with no smile on her face?
The little girl who thinks her life is a disgrace?
The little girl whose world is filled with harm and hatred,
feeling so hurt because she is so discriminated against.

Have you noticed the little girl with bruises all over her body?
She makes up excuses and tries to fool everybody.
The little girl everyone thinks is such a klutz
to have fallen so many times and have so many cuts.

Have you noticed the little girl who always cries in her sleep,
trying to beat a monster she cannot defeat?
The little girl who is only nine, who is expected to be perfect all the time.
The little girl who is punished severely
with punches and blows that knock her off her toes.

The little girl whose mother was lost in an accident to everyone’s dismay,
and is blamed for it every single day by a father who drinks the day away.
Why didn’t you notice this little girl?

Why didn’t you try to save her from her cruel world?
Didn’t you notice that she was all skin and bones?
Didn’t you start to wonder about all the excuses she told?
Didn’t you hear her poor muffled cries?

Did it occur to you that she only spoke when spoken to?
And didn’t it seem queer how she always tried to disappear?

Didn’t you hear about the little girl...
the little girl that died last week?
Because nobody noticed that she was being beat...

Nobody noticed the obvious cries for help in her eyes.
Nobody questioned her excuses and lies.
Were the cops surprised to find her bloody and weak,
beaten by a monster she just couldn’t defeat?

How long should it take before it’s too late for someone to take a stand
for a little girl who needed a hand?
How long should it take for somebody to notice
a little girl who's so young and hopeless?

Why couldn’t someone have looked into the little girls eyes
and realized
it shouldn’t hurt to be alive?