LOVED
They told her she could be LOVED
Cherished, adored
Embraced
Beloved
Darling
Child
If she was pretty enough
If she was smart enough
If she was good enough
She could be LOVED.
Eight years old when she first heard those words
Imagined loving arms wrapped around her
Warm hugs and goodnight kisses
Well if third-grade love was defined by
Being first-picked for handball
And basketball
And the play-date calls who never called
She flunked it all
From junior high to high the word began to change
Yet her vision of happiness still remained the same
Those who are beautiful are good, they say
So she poured out all she had for the sake of that glorious day
Painted cheeks and crimped locks
Hollowed stomachs caven over porcelain tubs
Beauty is not for the weak-of-stomach
Or for the weak-of-mind
And as she trades in her skin
Her eyes and her lips
For greater, fuller substitutes
The very dignity her materialized but now remodeled nose
Sought to enhance
Is stripped away with the surgeon's needle
Like the leech fastened onto her soul
LOVED: all she needed was to be LOVED.
LOVED: the five letter price-tag attached with humanity's promise for hope
But it wasn't enough
So she fixed up her heart, wore smiles on a
Worn face
If dollars equated to happiness, perhaps she could buy her own way
But money and fame left her nothing but stained
Buried six feet in shame
Without a penny to hold to her name
Parties and games left nothing more than temporary "fun"
Emptied the bottles, one by one
As if drinking might thicken
The walls of defense built up around her heart
Thinking the pain might drain
As the smile she strived all her life to feign
Trickled down that drain
With the last of this sickening game
Love
