The Misfit

©2/1969 Linda Goodman

This poem was written long ago, but it still haunts me.

They said that she was different.

She was stylish, it is true.

But it was said her attitude was at fault.

           I passed her many times,

And while she often smiled, she never spoke.

But she did not know my name.       

They said that she was pretty.

But pretty is as pretty does.

She was the height of sophistication.

          I saw her gazing in a mirror once.

She seemed not to be looking at herself, but through herself.

But she did not know that I saw.

They said that she was unhappy.

Her friends, though loyal, were few,

And resentment for her was not secret.

          I heard her crying once.

Her tears were light, but they were there.

But she did not know that I heard.

  

And now she is gone.

Some say she married.

Some say she is lost in a world outside our own.

          I saw her at the terminal one day.

She looked at our town with pain in her eyes,

          As if she loved something about it,

          Yet knew that it held nothing for her.

But she did not know I was there.