Ambiguity

by Richard Hartwell

I overheard someone refer to her as an
adolescent sitting on the cusp of maturity.
Blind language, that; for I know her and
from what I know and have seen of her,
she vacillates between woman and child,
balanced precariously, standing, not seated,
on a scimitar’s finely-honed edge, dividing
her slashed realities of what others expected,
wanted of her, cajoled and then demanded, and
her sharply-imagined desires and dreams of self,
attempting to regain her virginal self-confidence.

Tears course down her face, gain mass, and drop
upon her arm – not wrist, not yet, perhaps never –
mixing with parallel lines of blood newly yearned for,
until interrupted by the intrusive demands of now:
bells, chatter, rumors, directions, instructions, demands.
Each moment her mind reels from the consequences of
decisions she believes she cannot reveal nor contain.
Surreptitiously, she pulls her sweater sleeve up and,
slicing neat, new, parallel lines drawn towards infinity,
allows the focal point of pain to acknowledge her reality.