the high school girl

She glowers at the mirror in her room;

Her tousled, ruffled hair she needs to groom.

So tedious is her morning routine;

She wakes up early as to primp and preen.

Her pretty face is the source of her stress.

She cannot go out looking like a mess.

The complexion God gave her never shows;

What’s under all that makeup no one knows.

Though dress codes make her mask her silhouette,

On Friday nights modesty she neglects.

She says she hates attention but she likes

To flaunt her gorgeous frame in clothes too tight.

In only girls like her she puts her trust;

To others she’ll say, “You can’t sit with us.”

At lunch her conversations are a thrill;

Her friends await the tea she’s yet to spill.

And though the tea she brews is fresh and hot,

Reveal her self-consciousness she does not.

She laughs about the girls who make straight A’s

So that the pressure on them, not her, stays.

Though in her there’s potential and grandeur,

Of her abilities, she’s still unsure.

She knows that she has a clever mind,

But how to use it best she’s yet to find.

So all her doubts she drowns in mockery,

For she’s consumed by insecurity.

At Sunday mass with passion she does sing,

And lifts her troubled heart up to the King.

But when the mass is over she returns,

To invoking the praise for which she yearns.

And every night when she gets home too late,

She tells herself that God will have to wait.

Her Bible by her bedside lies untouched,

Enveloped in a thick layer of dust.

Though she is very bright, she’s yet to see

That God’s forgiving heart is all she needs.