Beauty

• Selena Heness, Grade 11, Elderslie High School
• Poetry
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'Read Write Repeat 2015' competition

Step by step, a silhouette dances over their faces

As pieces of glass fall; catching in their throats

The pain of choice sits on their shoulders, feeding them lies of truth

Of things that did and didn’t happen

Of times that reach into their children’s souls

Clasping their heart with nails of iron and gold.

Fire licks their roots; burning and obliterating all that is beauty

And yet they walk down the melting path

That twists and turns with mechanical arms that stretch into the sky

And call it ‘beauty’.