Buried Hope

A poem about a girl struggling with an eating disorder.

Buried Hope

The girl with the smile on her face.

That smile is hiding a lot;

A lot of pain.

A lot of tears.

A lot of fear.

 

Her skinny body is telling you how miserable she feels.

She can look so fragile

But she has to be strong.

Strong because she is smiling.

Strong because she is still here,

Even though she wants to disappear

 

This girl is broken

And needs to heal.

Needs to ask for help

Needs to be herself;

Get to know herself;

Create herself.

 

There is a story behind that smile.

A story with scars, starvation, tears and fears.

 

Most of the time that smile is fake.

She says that she’s fine

But she is not

 

This girl wants to be saved

This girl wants to save herself.

This girl is scared

But she wants to heal.

 

How can someone help her when she can’t help herself?

How can she trust people if she doesn’t trust herself?

How can you know someone if you don’t know yourself?

How can you love someone when you don’t love yourself?

 

The truth is that she can help herself

She is just too scared

She could use a little bit of hope

Hope for a better future

 

But there is some hope deep inside her

Buried with sadness

But it’s still there

Because she is still here.

 

That hope will help her

Someday

Somehow

Author's Note

Do you guys have tips?

Reviews

[Touché Armada]

I don’t know if I have tips, or if I adulterate your voice, but I find the wording a little bit hard, not hard like difficult, but hard like an uncomfortable bed. If I could just change a few things to make it softer, more poetic even in the light of the topic it covers it would be less definite with some of the prose around the brokenness of the subject of focus. A hopeful ending to this work would be much more convincing if the bleakness of it was softened. Like even the starting lines using more powerful words than smile such as :

The girl with the radiant face,
blissful features disguising a lot;

It removes the repetition of smile but paints a picture of not just a smile, but a very convincing one.