Reflections

I walk down a busy street,

My eyes cast down as I watch my feet.

I never see the road ahead,

I only know I'm not yet dead.

I never see the passers by,

I just hang my head and heave a sigh.

In my mind I ponder my reflection,

wondering if I'm meeting the expectations.

I see myself through the eye of mind,

but then I change courses, too scared to find.

What if what they say is true,

They seem so sure, their doubts so few.

If beauty is what I truly posess,

Then why worry, why obsess.

Maybe it's what I've heard in the past,

Always standing in the shadows cast.

Perhaps it's from being ignored and avoided,

Or intimidating those with views distorted.

I'm not the beast I once believed,

I have a beauty so few achieve.

Not a beauty of external sort,

That my passers by may report.
More, a beauty that's found within,

one I had lost, but found again.

I now look up and my eyes I raise,

no longer needing their words of praise.

I see the world as it should be seen,

knowing what the world now means.

My spirit no longer feels defeat,

For I no longer stare at my feet.

I greet the world with and equal stare,

Courageous and strong, no longer scared.

I spin and dance and hop around,

never once looking at the ground.

"Freedom," my spirit sings to me,

"Look at what I am and can be!"