Look at her.
The child you carried for nine months in your womb,
You do not know her at all.

You cannot bare the thought of her growing up.
She is dating boys,
And boys have hurt her.
They have taken advantage of this beautiful daughter of yours,
In every way possible.

She refuses to see herself as special.
The world has told her differently,
But she has something,
A gift, that they cannot steal from her.
One thing they cannot take away.

A glimmer in her eye,
A bounce in her step,
Even though she often wishes that she could cease to be,
Or that she could vanish,
She has the hope of a village.
And she carries it with her.

You will look at her and think,
"What a shame."
Much of the world has already written her off,
Calling her a lost cause.

She has fallen,
She has had problems,
But they are not her.

She has gone days without human contact,
She has lost friends for reasons out of her control,
And some of which were in her control.
She has lived a story
A series of chapters that other people have written for her,
But she is learning to become her own author.

So she is special.
She does not see it, you may not see it,
But she has hope.

Her beauty starts with her broken laugh,
Her gracious heart,
Her empathetic spirit.
It can destroy her,
But it builds her up as well.

With the curve of her smile
Her defined silhouette,
And her bright and opened mind.
She is a woman
In every sense of the word.