Pull the rope from either end

Watch it fray

and snap

and destroy from within.

 

Then squeeze the ball at its very core

Till it’s a flat disk,

with a pop,

then a ball no more.

 

Now take the girl with her midnight hair

And count the days of her despair.

When did she last gain a full night’s rest?

When did she last enjoy herself

Without distress?

 

It has been far too long

And now her song is long gone.

She will suffer and fail, for she can’t find her interest

But making stress or denial her cruel day’s dark mistress.

 

She is falling now,

raven hair and self-doubt cloud her view.

She frays and she snaps

She flattens and she pops,

She’s destroyed through and through.

 

But the thing about falling, is that now she may stand.

The stress and defeat tend to go hand in hand.

But she sets both aside to erect tall and proud.

All of her pain still will leave her unbowed.

 

Misfortune, self-hate, pressure, and doubt

One can only take so much

Till they forget what they’re about.

They must burst into tears

They must succumb to their fears

Or they must rise like the girl

And an inner peace will sprout.

 

She is not thread,

nor a flimsy, pink ball,

She can take so much more,

To rise after the fall.

 

She will smile at her lows

She will laugh in her highs

She cannot forget that all this shows

The heights to which she will someday rise.

 

So now she marches on,

dark curls on her back.

She has risen from the ashes,

and has no plan of looking back.

 

The ball’s hole is now unsighted.

The rope’s threads; reunited.

All is whole and all has improved

Since the year past’s stress

Threw the girl off her groove.

 

The pressure left her resolve unbroken.

So now a year later,

with joy and light,

she is happy to convolve.

Her hope has awoken.