Arizona was a quiet girl. She never spoke without being spoken to. Not because she was told to, but because she chose not to. Her thoughts, however, were what defined her.
I need no definition.
The other children at school questioned her. But she didn’t answer, as she knew their intentions.
I must not succumb to their blindness and insensitivity.
They teased her. They mocked her calling her “voiceless” and other cruel names. When she was alone, and she often was, she would write poems, beautiful poems, in her old leather-bound journal. Arizona was wise beyond her years. She was always, always listening.
I mature better by observing than by sharing my own input.
She sat a recess one day, on the bench that she sat on every day. The children called the bench the ‘shush bench.’ She sat on the shush bench, writing.
In my hour
Of darkness,
In my hour
Of terror,
In my hour
Of silence,
I shed
A little
Tear.
In my hour
Of brightness,
In my hour
Of calm,
In my hour
Of laughter,
I have no
Such a
Qualm.
Silence
Is a pleasure.
It is
Serenity
From within.
People think
It’s beauty,
But beauty’s
Only
Skin.
It is poems like these that accurately expressed Arizona’s feeling. She was a delicate child. Oh so delicate. They didn’t know they were penetrating so deep. They didn’t know they were pulling off the final petal of a delicate daisy.
The more they teased her, the less she wanted to live.
Life is cruel, and we must have a purpose.
One day it happened.
The teasing got out of control, physical, and violent.
They tormented her. Goading her to speak. She tried to walk by them, but they pushed her. Again. And again. She fell to the floor, but still wouldn’t say anything. Then they started hurting her.
And she gave up the will to fight back.
She hurt no one.
Her leather-bound journal slipped out of her fingers for the last time, and fell open. Landing so all could see.
They didn’t know she was dead yet.
They read the page, hoping for another reason to torment her, but they were stunned by the beauty of her words.
They tried to apologize, but for the first time in her life, Arizona wasn’t listening.
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