She Never Even Knew

Words can be strung in an order,
given purpose—made into an illustration
of what’s in a child’s mind, a child
whose mother and father are fighting
over and over, all the time.  The
scansion marks where the child
should breathe, where she should speak,
where she should heed her own emotions
and what’s happening in her head.  
She can create a world, and control
all of its pieces and parts and parse
out all of the things she can’t quite comprehend.
She can pick up a pen, without
knowing why, why she feels the
inclination to put words on a piece of paper.
She can fill in the lines of magical worlds,
she can color inside or out because
the rules are all hers.  She can lean
on words for her entire life, and one day realize
that all along they were helping her get by. 

 

 

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