Shades Grayed Poem by Shelby Barker

A too-pale quiet girl in summer
listens to stories of girls
left behind and lonely, even after
being reached out to, but acknowledge nothing
except the complaints encompassing them.
She stays at home.
With her days she gets herself pretty
and makes herself worthy of a picture
so strangers will think she doesn't
spend her nights crying with lack of
a soul that calls her Friend.
She doesn't smile, for both
hatred of her teeth and an attempt
to look deep and sensible.
Her sight leaves her by evening, being both
lazy and tiresome of her will
to keep waiting on no one.
Her ears hate to hear her sleep
as she suspires her defeat laced
with longing and dreams of what it is like
to be anything but an unwanted stranger.