She had two children. Twins. Key word being ‘had’.

As soon as she hit high school she was asked what she wanted to be. The answers like, “Doctor! Teacher! Business Owner! Author! Psychologist!”, would rumble around in her mind, but never “Poor.”. She hit just at the mark between homeless and middle class, always paid her bills on time, no matter how much her boss cut her check to feed another man’s raise.

She wanted to go to college. She had so many dreams from her youth, but we rushed to tell this adolescent to hurry and choose what you want to do for the rest of your life (even if you’re too young to understand what it entails). We never saw how she slouched. Her smile fading as she realized there was no easy way to get out of being poor. College cost money. Money she didn’t have.

She worked at the diner and his blue eyes caught hers. They shared one night of bliss. One night. He was gone in the morning and in his place was a positive pregnancy test.

“It was a mistake!” She cried as her friends slowly left her.

“Close your legs skank.”

“You chose this when you didn’t get a condom.”

“You should have been more careful.”

But no one said a word about the beautiful blue eyed boy who left her. No one said anything about how he was wrong to use her and leave her like that.

There was no way she could take care of a baby, let alone two. She contemplated abortion, but the yells and protests outside her door called her a murderer. She thought about putting them up for adoption, where someone could take care of them, someone who had money, but once again the people of the world called out to her. They told her she was abandoning them and again she was faced with her mistakes.

Her eyes got dark and sunk into her skull. Depression began and she needed medication. Meds, baby supplies, food, clothes, doctor appointments, all she could never begin to afford with her pay grade.

She asked for loans, she borrowed money, and in the end they all asked, “Why don’t you just get a better job?”

She was a single woman with children who needed care, no degree, but a high school diploma that congratulated her on twelve years of soul sucking, creativity killing, aspiration dying, tests upon tests. Not grading you for what you are worth, but how much you know.

She needed a new job.

Then social services came.

She got a new job.

She danced the night away between sheets of different men every night, sleep would take her away to candy islands, and cocaine whispered lullabies of death in her ear.

There were those frightening moments of awakeness where the voices of the people outside began to speak.

“You slut, how revolting.”

Everyone was quick to judge the prostitute, not those who bought her time.

And no one questioned how she got there.

Shall I compare you to a winter's night?

You are more frigid and more pitiless. 

Blizzards slam into towns with all their spite,

And winter's an eternal barrenness.

At times will Jack Frost's magic flare up wild,

And oft will dregs of silver bleach the earth;

And every man and beast touched be defiled,

Claimed victims of the season new in birth. 

But your sour aura always will prevail,

Nor can your visage ever hope to smooth,

Nor for you shall e'en death desire to hail,

When I have made known to the world this truth.

            In only parting with life shall I cease,

            And only then will you and I find peace.

I strapped on a gas mask to keep away the fuming love that remained stale in the air, 

I slipped into my chain mail to keep your dagger words from piercing my heart,

I clutched my burdensome shield to shelter me from your repulsive look raining down,

I built a hundred mile high wall, armored with many and barricaded myself in to keep you away,

But I never foresaw how you would fight your way through,

And take me by the hand tenderly with yours carefully and remove all that I had put up,

I didn’t intend for you to fight for me,

But you took me and made me feel whole again,

You made me feel like I never had before,

Your touch melted me thoroughly,

Then one day you left me beaten and more broken than when you had found me,

So I climbed back behind my wall clutching all the pieces you had shattered,

I put my gas mask back on and re-barricaded myself in.

As I sat and watched you,

I thought of all the little things,

that I love about you;

I love the way you bite your lip when you are trying to focus,

I love the way you bounce your knee in a room full of people

because you're nervous,

I love the way you dance in the hall to your favorite song,

when you think no one is looking, 

I love the way you slightly press against me when we are 

walking down the street and there's too many people, 

I love the way your hair falls in your face when you're reading a

book and you don't bother pushing it away, 

I love the way that when we are holding hands your fingers slightly twitch,

I love all your, what you call, flaws and imperfections, 

Because they're not flaws and imperfections, 

You're not a flaw or imperfection,

You are beautiful and perfect,

To me.

I can feel the overwhelming exhaustion

The sudden heaviness of my dazed eyelids

A hazy pressure beneath my skull

Tingling running down my arm resting

in the tips of my fingers

My head is dizzy and my mind 

quickly grows weary

But my thoughts grow louder

Tearing at me with its antagonizing words

Clawing to be set free

I try to to succumb to the sudden all consuming

emptiness of my being

Because if I did my demon would be set free

And the nightmares I kept boarded in me

Would resurrect and I would crumble into oblivion