The world doesn’t see me,
They see only what they want to see.
The person they wish me to be
Has never lived.
She is quiet to a fault, her voice lost even to her. She can not speak up or talk back,
Her voice is gone.
She has no dreams of her own,
Only the desire to serve.
She does not feel pleasure or pain;
Because these would get in their way.
She doesn’t laugh at things that are funny.
This girl could never die;
Because she never lived.
You see what you want to see;
You don’t see me.
The real me,
The me you refuse to see.
I grew her is secret inside my shell.
Like a plant with little sun or water she grew.
Her petals were thin her color pale but she grew.
I tended her when I could feeding her what I could.
Her stem was bent but she reached for the sky.
When she grew too big I broke the shell and kept her my secret even from myself.
I cannot deny her the chance to be me.
I want to be free.
I want to grow in the sun and drink in the rain.
I want to spin beneath the stars without fear.
Will you see what you want to see?
Or will you see me?
Mary Waugaman 
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