Battle Scars

There was once a girl in school I knew,

She didn’t have any friends, only a few;
 But she did have a beautiful mind,
 The rare one, she was hard to find.
 On her way to school, when she’d get out of the car,
 Every time in a new place, I’d see a new scar
 Her brother was popular, with a dazzling smile,
 We’d been best friends now, for a while
 And whenever he’d call me home,
 And I’d been left alone,
 I’d peek into his sister’s room.
 I vaguely remember the stickers on the ceiling of the stars and the moon.
 She had a huge whiteboard on top of her bed;
 ‘ENGAGED IN A BATTLE’ in red marker it had always read.
 And just a few days after I was getting to know her fears,
 And her laugh was the rarest, favourite sound I’d hear,
 He told me that she passed away,
 Our friendship seemed to end that day.
 But on her funeral, I did reach,
 And when it was her brother’s turn to speak,
 He mentioned what the whiteboard had read,
 And when he’s asked her, it was what she seemed to dread.
 When he’d asked her who she was fighting,
 She’s quickly given it to him in writing.
 ‘MYSELF’ she wrote, big and bold,
 And that paper, that day, he seemed to hold.
 I didn’t realise what that meant,
 Until now, 11 years I’ve spent,
 Not realising that I was in love
 With the girl, now resting in the heavens above.

                                                         -Nishtha Gugnani