When you see her,

tell me

what are you thinking?

Smart, kind, funny? no

ugly. gross. weird.

The girl who doesn't go to the parties

because she wasn't invited.

Well, what if

she was invited, to all those parties?

Maybe she just doesn't want to drink or smoke,

touch or be touched

even though yesterday,

you called her a 

s***.

Maybe she doesn't want to be like her father

who drinks too much and hits her mama.

Maybe she doesn't want to end up like her big sister,

who went to a party and drank too much,

who got into a car

and wrapped around a tree.

Crazy, quiet, stupid.

Fat, unpopular, disgusting.

You take one look at her and you turn away;

you say these words and you don't even know her name or

that they swallow her up and bury her in shame.

You don't know, when she goes home

the pain that demands to be felt

and how she lies to her mama

about another nosebleed,

and how her mama is so caught up in herself

that she doesn't see the scars and the bruises

neither on her wrists or deep inside her heart.

But when she sees you?

She has already forgiven you.

She pities you and she is the better person.

Because she knows that even with a pretty face

and even if you get invited to parties

you will only get so far with an ugly heart.