As Many Times As It Takes
A poem about a strong girl.
Her body, flecked with scars,
was a puzzle of near misses,
and mistakes she’d never make
again. Her skin was carved with scars that
someone else had earned, bearing stories
that were not hers to tell. The scars created a
map that led to one of three places to flee in
the event of disaster: the last one. And so, the
girl learned from a young age it was better to
paint a stripe over her eyes and hope she went
blind before she saw another mirror. Until she
met a boy, eyes in permanent shadows. Until she
let a photographer tell her she was beautiful. She
told him she was sorry if he’d expected a rose and
gotten a real girl instead, but she made up for it
because she’d seen her fair share of thorns. She didn’t
see the worth of a rose until she was face to face with
the boy whose eyes were shadows. In those shadows
She found someone whose heart, she decided, had
Known nothing in its young life but pain. She knew
She’d found a soul rich with suffering, drowning in it.
What she didn’t know was that healing is possible
When two people are trying. She learned, eventually,
That beauty can feel real and that people can be kind
And that life can be worth living if you give it a try
As many times as it takes until you find your Love.
— — — — — — — — — — — —
Thanks for reading this poem. It’s deeply meaningful to me, even though it is about two fictional characters. What I create in my mind often has a place in my heart, and such is the case here, so I hope you liked this piece. If you’d like more:
“Juggernaut” features poetry and prose. “Jamie” is a poem a bit like this one, but shows more of my typical style. “Sweet Home Nevada” is the most recent in a chain of short fiction.
…BRD…
