Amazon

She wears her bruises like a badge,
blossoming on her vein-marbled skin.
Every cut, every scab, every hard earned scratch,
is a mark on her map, a sign of a win.

Whittled down nails graze fingertips at best,
with dark green dirt ingrained underneath.
Islands of varnish like an unwelcome guest,
and pointed and sharp like a sword from its sheath.

This wild girl has a voice that will be heard,
above the clamour of the mumbling crowd.
Unlike theirs is loud, honest and curt
-diamond through glass. Unaccountably proud.

Hair pulled back off a sun burnt face,
lips dry and cracked and constantly sore.
An ageless beauty that time won't erase,
a fighter, an Amazon in need of a war.

She knows the world like the back of her hand,
which is to say, not incredibly well.
But she yearns to know it and to understand.
It is this thirst that she is longing to quell.

She wears her bruises like a badge,
blossoming on her vein-marbled skin.
Every cut, every scab, every hard earned scratch,
is a mark on her map, a sign on a win.