pretty in pink

*

loving her new dress

so grown up and such a pretty color.

light light light pink.  her very favorite.

carefully smoothing it (just one more time),

*

not really ready to leave it,

the before-school-starts solace of the first floor bathroom.

but the warning bell awakens her,

so with a nervous glance back at the mirror,

she heads toward the door

and the junior high chaos on the other side.

*

she knows she will never fit in

they will never accept her

and as nice as acceptance sounds,

she doesn’t really care to belong there

among them

*

she had come to terms with her fate,

that these next few years would be just ones to get through,

(as unscathed as possible)

(unscathed?  Impossible!)

(fairy tales cross her mind)

but she doesn’t believe in fairy tales anymore

*

heading to class, she tries to hide in plain sight

because she knows that is the only way

*

towards the end of the day

she finds herself back in the solace

of the deserted first floor bathroom

before her final class of the day.

*

hadn’t been such a bad day, really.

the mean girls had giggled a lot today,

she knew they were making fun of her,

but they hadn’t been as mean as usual.

she didn’t ask herself why,

just welcomed a small reprieve from the usual cruelty.

*

as she prepares herself for this final hour

a stranger walks in with a tear in her eye

and timidly interrupts her solitude,

a new girl who hasn’t yet figured out the way things are here,

(she doesn’t mean to break the rules)

she’s crying now, this new girl, and it’s a puzzlement

*

this new girl timidly tells her

of the large dried blood stain covering the back of her pretty pink dress

and she cries harder as she tells her

that she noticed it this morning.

*

her dress was ruined,

she never wore it again.

lsc 1/11/2023

these were the days

when i started to realize i didn’t want to compete in the human race

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