Ragamuffin
And I see her there, wild and feral in a cage made of lace and pastels. Snapping through an underbite smile and singing an underbreath song. She stood on benches and ran through grass in buckled shoes not made to move. She held frogs in hands sprouting fingers adorned in gold trinkets. And skinned knees through white tights wrapped like nets. Carried on the backs of her brothers she learned to walk in her own time and ran rather than stumbled through her first solo journey. She spoke in her mind full soliloquies rather than mumbling letters aloud. She spoke with the confidence of one with something for which to be proud of. She played with her own hands and created worlds with her own thoughts. Twirling spaces jagged lines soft rather than tough. A sense of humor that didn’t quite match but was regardless targeted to be struck. A hope to teach without much of a desire to sit and learn. Because who needs equations when you could hunker down and feel the world turn. A mouth full of laughter and a heart full of sensitive songs all coming out on the swings. A defiance of commands demanding silence trying to cut her words wings. I see her for all she truly was and all she wished she could be. I see her there and beg her to come back to me. She is wild and feral, she is within my reach, little ragamuffin girl, she is me.