Staring head-on
They think they know what they see.
Thinking, speaking, acting on judgments
With no real knowledge or foundation.
Snap judgments are near impossible to escape.

These, the reigning kings and queens,
They think they know what’s important.
Money, clothes, popularity.
Snap, snap, snap.
All bark and no bite
But in high school, the loudest bark is all it takes to shatter the mirror of a person’s eyes.
To break them open, set those eyes cast down.

Me? What do I say?

Your eyes are the windows through
Which your soul views the world.
They are to be protected. Held high and defiant.
Meet the stares.

Your soul is the essence of you.
To let it be broken or even dinged is
To deny yourself.

To allow it to be broken by another
Is the ultimate shame.

Insults, barbs, the pointed words
Slide off me like water to a duck.
The looks?
Absorbed. My soul is stronger,
And I say let it shine.
To look at me, you see a
Socially inept, stoically silent
Not to mention fashionably questionable
Girl.
One with a constantly moving pencil.
Yeah, I see the stereotypes coming a mile down the pike.

Don’t they get that’s not what matters?

What counts is what no one can see.
What counts is what I see looking back at me
When I’m looking through the glass.