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To the Stick Figure Scraped Off the Back Window
Strange gap in the world’s back window,
Where you went, nobody seems to know.
Scraped off the glass but the awkward gap shows where you used to be;
The chipped paint they tried to erase never could be removed completely.
They only see you for what isn’t here –
Children, a spouse, friends, or a career,
And so as a ghost you just unceremoniously disappear
from eyes that cannot see beyond discomfort and fear.
But a few see something and can’t ignore it, and I’ll tell you, instead,
The back bumper and window are on my chuck-it list; there’s more in the front and ahead.
Your lack of trophy display accomplishments isn’t a life or death sentence
To a future that is nothing but what the rest of us managed to hide and forget.
You’re not to settle for just being some source of regret erased from the back window,
I see this gap and I want you to know:
That just because you rarely wear a smiley face
Doesn’t mean that on this ride you have no place.
You don’t have to be a happy stick figure to be seen,
And I’d rather see you as you are than see only a gap where you were wiped off clean,
Leaving people silently wondering where you went.
I’ll tell you it’s for the front window you are meant.
And that looking at what’s before us, even if the glass is cracked,
Is far more important than relegating any one life to a gap in the back.
Copyright ©
Amy Sell
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