Poem Seventeen - Normal

If I were normal, she said,
People wouldn't look at me like they do.
They wouldn't whisper behind my back,
And look over my head instead of in my eyes.
If I were normal, she said,
People would talk to me instead of about me.
They wouldn't cross the street to avoid me,
And they would smile at me instead of laugh at me.
She said this so simply, with no anger,
Her disfigured face calm,
Her soft hands spread wide
Expressing the truth of her life,
Describing the box she inhabited,
How she was placed there by shallow minds,
And I thought, "If you were normal,
You would not be half as beautiful."