Many scars ago she tied a cherry red balloon to her wrist
A free-floating, lightweight balloon.
It made her happy.
But her hand started to turn blue
Because it was strung too tightly,
So she cut it from her wrist and watched it go.
When she was thirteen,
She gripped a magazine tightly between two cherry red nails
As if it were the Bible
To the world she got ****** in to.
"Will I be beautiful?"
She asked artfully synthetic faces
Painted on a canvas of bright and glossy paper
"Yes" they would say with cherry red lips
Teeth clenched and plastered smiles
"Will I be gorgeous? Will I be wanted?"
"Will I be pretty?"
She asked her mother
With a thirsty tongue
"No" her mother said
"You will not be defined by two syllables
And one word"
"Don't you see the balloon you have tied around your own neck?
It is strung around your heart.
It seems beautiful now
But it closes tighter each day."
Even as she heard this, it was with crafted ears
Her mother searched for personality in her eyes
But they too were emblazed with the cherry red
Her blindness made her unaware of the blue
That started in her fingertips and ended in her toes