She has hair
short,
and even though
she has the face of an angel
and a heart of gold,
she can't be a natural beauty
according to the world.

The waist line of her dress
on her
long torso
falls a couple ribs short.

A couple seconds short
for 1st place.
She will push and push
getting her short legs
to take her as fast as they can go
and get in
4th place.
Not a natural runner
that's for sure.

But her legs are strong
and so are her hopes,
she won't stop running,
she won't stop trying.
She will keep pushing
to get through the barrier
that's almost as thick
as her stubborn skull.

In that cranium
she will jam
months
of school work,
assignments,
pages of blank notes
into one night.
She wakes up the next day,
takes her final exam,
and comes home with a
barely passing
D.
No, definitely not a natural student.

But she will take that D
and make it something
beautiful,
something worth looking at.
An object more than just a letter,
where lines to her
are perfect and proportionate
and can flow onto the page
at her own pace.

That big red D
on that paper of black and white
now looks like a unicorn
jumping over a rainbow
that emerges from the depths of the ocean of
Failure.

Her parents look at the paper
and say
"Wow, you are a natural artist,
but you know what that gets you?"
"What?" she asks.
"Nothing!"

But she is the girl
with the short hair,
the long torso,
and short legs
that carry
the biggest heart
and the thickest head.
No matter how unnaturally
things may come to her
she will keep going
with a huge smile
on that angel face of hers.