Breaking from the Grey

She’s just a woman –
         comprised of brittle bones
         with names she can’t pronounce
        and temporary organs...
Her flaming waves and speckled cheeks
are not unusual, not unique.
“You look like someone I know,”
is something she hears far too often,
reminding her she’s just another common Jane.
         
She reads books about
prodigious adventures,
heroes and heroines,
and wondrous fantasies,
          while she sits in the cold windowsill,
          wrapped in wool sweaters and uncertainty.

Lyrical voices and musical notes,
strung together by strangers in far off cities,
reach out through the stereo and hold her hand.
             She couldn’t compose the chords
             or the inverted melodies,
             but their words say what she can’t
             and the rhythm echoes in her blood.

She is not faultless,
not a goddess to be adored.
She is
            another hand to shake,
                  another name to forget,          
                       another face unnoticed.

Yet, in all of this...
she is marvelous.
            She is...
            the nightingale who is afraid to sing,
            the exotic land in uncharted waters,
            the novel waiting to be written.

She is extraordinary,
wishing she could settle for the typical.
Peeling off her identity, piece by piece,
she hopes to blend in with the common grey,
            but this lustrous color,
            this resplendent beauty
            cannot be concealed.
            It can only be embraced.