“Sutures”
A poem by Shelly Moore for
© 2022 LimitlessStimulus.com

I wasn’t the homecoming queen.
I wasn’t popular.
I was friends with everyone,
On my end, anyway, for sure.

I wasn’t born wealthy.
I’m not genetically thin.
I have curves that serve as protection,
A sturdy fortress protects the queen within.

I don’t sing like an angel.
My voice is simply.. nice.
Not great enough to change the world,
More like fluttering wings of a clumsy butterfly.

I can conquer anything I put my mind to.
Bound by stubborn determination and pride.
I’ll soar to the highest heights… of mediocrity,
Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Hush now, don’t show emotion.
People do not like such things.
Well, they certainly do when it’s a stranger,
When they can click “like,” then push them away.

Everyone feels like a black sheep.
Everyone does, I promise you.
I do, and he does, and she does,
Along with everyone else in your view.

We spend too much time on explaining
What’s wrong with us, why we do what we do.
We have diagnoses for everything from just breathing,
To feeling uninspired or gay.

A hundred years ago men could throw women
Into jail cells for simply being sad.
They’d say, “She’s insane, lock her up!”
And they’d come in droves with backup,
Wife gone; now the husband can play.

Your humanity simply ceased to exist.
Pleas completely dismissed.
Locked away in a cell, rest of your days spent in hell,
Because, you know, they’d throw that damn key away.

It takes humanity eons and eons to learn,
The horrific errors of our ways.
We repeat history again and again,
Ignorantly, we standby shocked and amazed.

Her father called her, “a child who was so happy until she was not.”
She asked what he meant by his words,
He said, “You just had to be seen, had to be heard,” and in that moment, she now understood.

She understood who she is as an adult.
She understood the reason for her pain.
It hadn’t been all she had suffered in life,
But instead the feeling of simply not being seen.

They never bothered to ask her
Why she could possibly be so sad.
It was easier to tell her to, “Toughen up!
Your life’s not even all that bad!”

They never bothered to check in,
With the mind inside the little happy little girl.
Who felt overwhelmed and ashamed and partially to blame
For the chaos that had shaken her world.

She learned quickly her words held power.
She could use them to get them to see her.
She’d grow up to write books,
Pain tucked away in a nook,
Slowly trickling onto pages like water.

All her life she’s felt not enough.
As a daughter, as a mother, as a wife.
As a friend, as a sister, a lover, a girlfriend,
Buzzing ‘round like an pesky, insignificant fly.

So if she does the pushing, she gains control.
She’d push you away the first time she caught your eyes roll.
She’d push and then cry, wondering why,
She wasn’t enough to keep those she loves at her side.

Her eyes are now open and arms tired,
From decades of playing tug-of-war, she’s retired.
Her only goal is to love and be loved,
To laugh and make laugh, to adore and to inspire.

She isn’t fully healed, but is anyone really ever?
We live and we learn in this life and endeavor,
To learn from our past and create a better future,
We do the best we can with loose sutures.