My girl doesn’t have perfect legs; they are scarred from blindly leaping into rivers and climbing up trees. Bare feet. Cut hands. The Earth receives her well but the rocks and stones push back against the soft flesh of her calves.

My girl has traces of pain hidden on herself where she tried to let it out, arms crossed over an aching chest, she’s a master of hide and seek.

My girl is at constant battle with herself, asleep on the couch, I can hear her stomach growling. She’s on a diet of fruits and honey, she doesn’t see herself melting away.

My girl has dreams where she smiles in her sleep, where she bites her lip and smirks at four o’clock in the morning, when sleep finally overtakes her small form. Underneath the covers; hiding away from a world that she no longer wishes to be a part of.

My girl never cries, even when I can tell that she’s breaking on the inside. Quietly, she’ll sit. Quietly, she’ll write in her journals, small delicate sweeps of the pen across blank unlined paper. She looks like a small author, or a whisperer of dark secrets, crouched over her journal.

My girl is a mystery wrapped up in a beautifully torn and bruised shell. She leaves sickly sweet reminders of herself wherever she goes. Her bare feet prints show; mud and dirt and love on my heart.