6
She is sun kissed
and brown eyed,
dark haired
and quick-tongued;
She knows struggles
of overcoming barriers—
not just the normal kind
of brace faces,
messy hair, voice cracks,
and break outs.
She knows the struggles
of having a deaf ear
in a room full of children
who all understand
each other;
she is at home with
the feeling of being
an outsider.
Her name sounds like
something we learned
to pronounce in our high
school Spanish classrooms.
He is wide-eyed
and towering,
smacking other
bodies on a green
field; he is familiar
to the sympathetic
sound of “Your life
matters, too,”
wanting to be more
than just another
Skins and Hearts
By Jenna
Bednarsky
6