Who She Wasn't

Who She Wasn't
 
She was gorgeous in the light
 
A mask surrounding her eyes
 
Did not steal her momentum
 
Voice holds such power
 
Authority
 
Ground
 
She was walking in the dark
 
A hood encasing her features
 
Did not steal her aura
 
Hands hold such grace
 
Compassion
 
Forgiveness
 
She was lying in the sand
 
A ray of sunshine warming her skin
 
Did not steal her mystery
 
Shoulders hold such prestige
 
Wealth
 
Importance
 
Her name
 
Rolled off her tongue
 
With a smile
 
“Amber.”
 
She moved with the air
 
Precise
 
Quick
 
Invisible
 
Her language flowed like a sonnet
 
They hid her world in the rhymes
 
They hid her
 
This woman was Amber
 
Was this woman Amber?
 
At midnight
 
She stood at the edge of the ocean
 
Just listening to the waves
 
At the crack of dawn
 
She floated away from the shore
 
Past the city limits
 
Out of view
 
Into the horizon
 
Amber she was
 
Amber she wasn’t.
 
I saw what I wanted
 
And wanted what I saw.
 
What I didn’t see was what
 
She was.
 
“Amber, is it?”
 
“Ruby it might be.”
 
“Amethyst, with the whit?”
 
“Diamond, I perceive?”
 
Whoever finds will keep
 
Whoever keeps will never
 
Find what was truly there
 
I thought I had lost her
 
My Amber
 
But I never had her
 
THE Amber
 
I had what I found:
 
A mask
 
A jacket
 
A bottle of sunscreen
 
A name tag
 
A coffee order
 
A story I pieced together
 
For a woman who was real
 
For a woman with a different story
 
For a woman whose life was not
 
What I thought.
 
R.I.P.
 
Leona Mary Simmons
 
1988-2016