A Poem for Beautiful Girls

When you’re beautiful
people stare
because you’re different, or
because they want to be you, or
because they want to be with you, or
because they want to destroy you.

Some girls around you
will consume every terrible lie,
knowing full well they are lies,
but thinking you deserve them.

Some men will step back a good metre or so,
out of respect,
or thinking you’ll startle and run for the fences.

Some will try to forget you’re beautiful,
and just be your friend.
And, sometimes, someone will see your beauty
as just a small part of everything else.

When you’re beautiful, counterfeit love
speeds towards you, unexpected.
You try to step back, let it rush past
in the fog of its own hubris.
You pray there will be no collision.

When you’re older, you breathe a sigh of relief
to become just another somebody, or nobody,
making her way through the city
enjoying quiet ecstasies
like sitting in a café, unbothered
or being with your children, who only see Mom.
It’s as if you’ve woken from a dream
to a new, real life
in an abiding quiet that eluded you for so long
you’d forgotten how beautiful it is.

.