Bent

Here she comes
folded in half
her backbone neatly separating her life,
as if she got up one day
and she'd been blessed with this stoop

those of us who walk past her now
are blind to the twisting knives of genetics
the years of burden unseen

but while the upright school years recede
and while she bears the burden
of our uneasiness
her spirit is stronger than steel
and is held together by kevlar thread
because even though she is bowed and bent
she is unbroken,
her head held high as she looks me in the eye