Patchwork: The Lonely Girl

Honors:
Featured at "Poetically Speaking"
Published in an issue of Teen Voices Magazine


Patchwork: The Lonely Girl
By Talia Goodman

I am the girl who carries myself
with a neatly woven shawl wrapped tightly around me.
I am the lonely girl.

In the Beginning: You are my best and only friend.
You see in "me" what everyone else mistakes for "her".
By her I mean "that girl", the "awkward little white" girl,
the "please god not her girl", the "here we go again" girl.
But not you. You just see me.
And for once, I'm not a lonely girl.

Then: Again I'm engulfed in a shawl I never asked for.
Which is now musty and covered in holes.
In the winter I shiver, in the summer I boil.
But just one more year,
And I'll never have to be a lonely girl.

Afterwards:
Again we are together.
Outside nothing's changed.
Inside you're my fox's hound.
Gone are the days of spy's dreams
No matter; at least
I am not a lonely girl.

Meanwhile: Life goes on.
New friends are made, old friends goes too soon,
(One child Hunting clouds in his little world of clay)
But these friends are your friends.
And who do I have?
I have you, of course.
Sometimes I think I feel the itchy cloth of a shawl slowly tightening around my neck
But I'm not a lonely girl... am I?

Soon: Always becomes Sometimes, and Sometimes becomes Never,
And is "just for awhile" what you make of forever?
The life that we shared and the people we met,
Will follow me always, but you seem to forget.
Finally: I try to tell you, what you are doing,
Killing me slowly and sweetly with your smile.
You just laugh it off.
I love you but you are blind to the pain your are causing me,
And all my sorrow is exploding out my ears and not my mouth.
You keep forgetting that you're supposed to see me as me,
And not just "her being her again",
Remember that?
Eventually: I slink away under a shawl as tattered and duct taped as my father's socks.
Such a lonely girl.
The End: The last day of school we were paired in class.
We began talking and all my misery melted away.
It was like we were still two little girls sitting on the playground,
dreaming about adventures we'd never have.
Later that day I tried to say goodbye.
I went to your table, and I didn't see you,
but when I turned around you were standing there.
Then you told me you were moving out of the city.
I stared at you for a moment.
Then I hugged you, turned around, and walked away.
I tried to collect my thoughts and put a name to my emotions,
but everything came in shattered glass and patches.
Such a delightfully dreadful tangled web we had woven,
and no two memories seemed to fall into place together,
like fitting legos into lincoln logs.
I stared blankly at the pile of cloth in my hands
and all I saw was loose threads and scraps,
so I threw it in the trash.

The Beginning: Once upon a time the friendship and love you showed
me gave me the courage
to be so much more
than a lonely girl.