A seed planted and a baby is split to halves

Crystals sprouting from branches, watercolor painted paths

Purple trees growing to touch the silk sky

Those springtime pink flowers kissing small brown eyes

Another mark on the wall

Two years old and two feet tall

She’s learning the tongue spoken by her mother

The syllables coated with beauty falling one after another

Happy birthday they sing

All the joys age 8 will bring

Returning with presents and smiles now sore

They ask her “why must we leave our shoes at the door?”

Thoughts hunt within her brain, pluck areas unexplored

Oh how she’d flourish with that pale hair, never ignored

And eyes the same color as blueberries on a harsh day

A crystal fell when she wished her foreign away

Middle school sprinkling poison to waste

Belly-laughs when she’s asked how dog tastes

Involuntary smiles while they pull their eyes back

As they poke her ancestors who gifted her the slant

The dulcet melody she once cherished, now overly hazy

As her grandmother calls worried for her safety

Following news she heard of attacks on those like their own

The crystals fall faster like rainfall, those branches now stand alone

Yet today she replants them

And they’ll sprout shielding the amort

For through the violent war

She finds comfort where she didn’t before

Blindfolded she finds strength

Passed down from that half she kept at arms length

Removing the blindfold she’ll stare at the girl in the reflection

And for the first time 

She doesn’t see an infection.