Perfectly Imperfect Me

“There are good things inside of you.”

She was told when she was young,

And she always asked,

“What?”

No one ever answered,

But only smiled,

And said,

“You’ll see.”

 

When she was older at age nine,

She gave her lunch,

To a girl who had none,

And proudly asked,

If kindness was the good stuff,

Inside of her.

 

At age eleven she always asked,

“Is this?”

Because the girl who was older now,

Was starting to give up hope.

 

At age twelve she quit trying,

Because she didn’t think,

She had good stuff inside of her,

Because whatever was there,

Had turned bad,

And was a dark twisting mass.

 

When she was fourteen,

The older girl realized,

That she has lost her sun,

And had not seen,

The twisty dark shapes,

For what it was:

A garden exploding out of pots,

And running trellises up walls.

Rose bushes full in bloom,

And tree’s with stretching roots.

 

She went to her parents who smiled,

When she asked,

“Is a garden the good stuff inside of me?”