NaPoWriMo - The Loneliness of Pretty

Image by John F. Ashton-Keller

Beauty’s only skin deep they say,
So peel off my skin.

If your right hand offends you then cut it off.
Remove me from you.

You who made me a part of you
Then turned your back on me.

You who professed forever,

Then dwindled to sometimes,
Then occasionally,
Then rarely,
Now never.

You curse me
Blame me.
Fine.
I remember
when you said,
“Mine.”

Selfishly, then, you’d cling to me
In the white hot embers of afterglow.
Selfishly, now, you blame me for seeking
What you promised to give, but forgot.

Was the promise forgotten?
Or was it only me?

You were my everything –
My present and my future.
I depended on you.
I wanted you.
I needed you.

Though we were together, I found myself alone,
Aching and desperate to be needed again –
To be important again,
To mean something to someone again.

Opportunity merely knocked.
I hesitated at first,
wanting you to stop my outstretched hand,
to take it into your own and claim me once again.

The hand that took mine was not yours,
But the hand of Opportunity.

I only wish you’d have knocked first.

Amy McGrath is a mixed media artist, a writer, and a performer. She lives in Virginia Beach with her husband and is the mom of two amazing young men.