Them and Her
Poem
And they hated her, not for what she did,
But because she did not do it with them.
They hated her smile, when they didn’t cause it.
Only tears held value, if they could provoke them.
Growling and snarling and pawing the ground,
They kicked up clouds of dust around them.
But without teeth, they could only taunt,
And anger and gall consumed them.
At first she was sad, at first disheartened,
By the end of the friendship between them.
But she ruefully saw, they were no friends at all
So she washed her world clean of them.
And her days became brighter, clearer it seemed
Without their pettiness to control her.
She walked on, wiser, and made new friends
People who respected and loved her.
Each day she grew stronger, and closer to freedom
With the past firmly behind her.
For the evil they breathed had said more about them
Than it ever had said about her.
more by VK LYNNE
photograph by Jocelyn Maloney
