lucent.

she’s woven up silly tender, this one, young in a way that makes her a magnet for bullies.

again she dragged through the door, clutching a scrap of yellow that was once a laminated tag on her backpack: another crumpled casualty of yanking fingers in the bus line.

'k-- did it,' she tells me. 'she ripped it off and held it in front of my face like this and said, aw. too bad.'

we talk about telling k to please not do it again and what it means to repay something hurtful with something kind and before i’m even done she’s skipping off to her brothers in the kitchen, her laugh this buoyant, lucent thing like birdsong lifting the sky.

and while i ache for the sad parts in her day, i find a quiet thankfulness that these hurts don't define her. that she is treasured through, secure enough to allow room for the weakness of others.

i could stand to learn a thing or two from that girl.