In Praise of an Awkward Childhood

You grace me now with beauty and sophistication,
as you slowly crept through the back door;
unlike before, ignorance seemed your way,
patiently waiting in my awkward childhood.
A flash of metal in a cluttered smile,
wiry curls hanging wildly in front of chubby cheeks,
all anything but me.
And with time, you brought a surge of pain,
the pain of stretching limbs;
inches towering in a crowd of dormant bodies
watching secretly, wishing to catch up.
And still waiting, unassured of the change pooling around me,
while my mother’s overly kind words
sweetly plunged themselves into my diminishing scrutiny.
You spun my mind around in circles of scarce hope,
no explanation for your ways,
knowing someday you would emerge from darkness
and force a strange skin to slowly peel away,
revealing a blossom of beauty both inside and out,
fixing what had been rightfully wronged.
And now you come to delicately sew closed my now-forgiving wounds.

© 2010 Kara Nabors