Learning

Tears cloud her eyes.

She defiantly turns away.

Tilting her head up, she gazes without focus

somewhere far ahead

in a motion only adults who’ve known great pain should have practiced.

Her lip begins to quiver.

She is only eight and is dealing with a burden too heavy for her delicate body.

She shuts out my questions, my stern commands, then my begging sympathy –

none of them permeate the shell she now encloses herself in.

While the other kids learn to read,

she learns that it is easy to get hurt.

She has learned, too soon, that there aren’t good guys and bad guys.

No, this may be what adults tell her, but she has learned otherwise.

She now knows that the good guys can hurt you so badly,

you question their goodness.

She’s no stranger to booming voices, contorted faces, and pointed fingers.

So I try with tenderness, to pull her tear-stained hands toward mine.

Some days this works.

But some days she stays seated on that bench,
pushing her sneakers through the sand.

She has already learned something I cannot un-teach her.