The poem begins with the speaker—Gretel, the protagonist of the fairytale "Hansel and Gretel"—explaining that her life is going well. The people who wished her and her brother harm are now dead. However, she has flashback-like memories of killing the witch who tried to hurt her and her brother. She recalls the witch's scream as Gretel trapped her in a hot oven.
But she clarifies again that she is safe now. She and her brother are distant physically and emotionally from women, who have tried to hurt them in the past. They now live with their father, have enough to eat, and are kept safe. Their father locks up the house's doors to keep people from harming them. Now that she is safe, Gretel wonders why she is unable to forget the trauma of the past. After all, years have passed since any real harm came her way.
Now, though, Gretel feels like the only person who remembers the past. Her brother, who endured danger with her, seems oblivious, and she suspects that he wants to abandon her. She wonders how he can act this way, when she killed somebody to save his life. Meanwhile, while he seems to have forgotten everything, she feels immersed in the past, unable to escape images of the forest where she and her brother were trapped or the fire where she burned the witch.
At night, she wants her brother to hold her, but cannot find him. She feels lonely, but wonders whether she is really alone. She hears whispering, as if she is being watched, and she feels that the forest, the fire, and the past as a whole remain very real to her.
