Whispered voices, muffled sounds, she
hears crazy noises in her head; this woman
roams the streets spitting knowledge
in other people’s faces. But her wise words
get mistaken for gibberish when people see her,
they turn away and go another route with their
noses clogged up to drown out the stench.

This older woman is dirty with knots
in her hair; it hasn’t been combed or washed
in decades, not to mention her shredded dress
and unbearable body odor, and if anyone looks
a little closer, they’ll notice her bare feet, cracked
and caked in dirt. However, there’s always
a smile on her face, and she exuberates
a sense of stillness.

Sometimes it’s blank stares for days,
but people don’t know her story; what they see
on the outside is not who she is on the inside
something unspeakable happened to her
a long time ago; she was once young and vibrant,
a “normal” human being; brilliant, too
but no one remembers her like that.