- Waking up to feel again -

A brown dog barks
from across the street;
it wakes her up, tense,
from a dreamless night.
She's tired of living
as if her coat's pockets
were full of broken glass.

She thinks.

It could have been better,
life, as a shelter:
no risks, less tears,
fewer regrets.
Instead, it was bitter,
like the taste on her tongue
after that dinner,
when she stood up,
ready to leave,
her hair thrown back
- with defiance -
facing a room
full of guests,
none of them her friends.

Then, memories of long ago.

In the sanctuary of her bedroom
often beaten and abused,
in the safety of her schoolyard
only jealousy and hatred,
in an attempt to find empowering roots,
only fleas and weeds.

Love had been her biggest hope,
her greatest disillusion,
yet she stood
against waves
thick as ink,
her armor shining
under the ripening sun.
Beneath the steel,
her skin still burns
but she can look at her future
without blinking,
until emotions are born
from the horizon,
as if rising to caress
what used to be her heart,
now a broken stone.