Contradiction | Teen Ink

Contradiction

June 19, 2014
By heatherashlan SILVER, Forsyth, Georgia
heatherashlan SILVER, Forsyth, Georgia
9 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
'The web was woven curiously,
"The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not,—this is I,

The Lady of Shalott.'"
-Alfred Lord Tennyson


Your eyes are hazy windows
to a disconcerted soul.

You are ethereal.

Surely your soul is not of this world,
even if your flesh is mortal.

Many people see you
as a curse
a leech
a disdainful thing
a broken machine.

In dark moments of self-pity,
I've felt the same.
Though I am ashamed to remember those thoughts as my own.

Yet in moments such as these,
when I find myself in a reflective, retrospective mood,
I can see you.

I can see you in the light of God's truth.

Some people think you are possessed.
That you are a sou tormented by the demons of Hell.

But I am your sister.
The hazy depths of your soul are not entirely lost to me.
I know the deep bond of sisterhood, while faint,
is unbreakable.

This bond,
This faint connection,
This fading light in a stormy sea,
being allowed to survive by our God's grace,
allows me to see you.

Allows me to see the truth.

The truth is you are no curse.
No leech.

You are not a machine to be broken.

You are no demon, nor do you possess one.
For how can an angel of Heavenly hosts,
encompass a thing of the pits of Hell?

But an angel, even wrapped in glorious cloaks of white,
instead of the chains of mortal flesh,
cannot match the perfection of our Lord.

She is an angel.

My sister, of and in herself, is completely mortal, a sinner,
born to fall short of the Glory.

She possesses a soul that,
if all the world were a perfect place
and had Eve not sinned in her Garden,
should never have felt the pain of earthly exile.

My sister, in short,
is a contradiction.


The author's comments:
This poem, Contradiction, is a sort of Ode to my little sister, who has autism. Living with autism, in my experience, is a messy, confusing, always-13-minutes-late kind of lifestyle that more and more people are having to live. When we go out, I see reactions ranging from pity to ridicule. People, and at times myself included, do not understand that in the end, my little sister is a gift, like a kiln or a paint brush, meant to shape, mold, and ultimately transform myself and my family in beautiful ways, if only we allow ourselves to change.

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