Large Fierce Mammal

The inspiration of this poem came from a story I was once told by the Woman it happened to. Her name is not Stella.

Stella

By LFM

Stella was an ugly girl,
At least that’s how she felt.
Her mirror’s cruelty exposed
The cards that she’d been dealt.

Her parents were so beautiful
It made so little sense
Her mother’s beauteous womb would make
A troll and send it hence.

Day by day she forced herself
To stand before the glass,
And there she learned how much she loathed
Her face, her waist, her ass.

Her father’s ears, her mother’s lips
The eyes of a cadaver.
She feared she’d wed an ugly man
For no one else would have her.

And then one day her father
Found her crying in her room.
He went inside and stroked her hair,
And asked what caused her gloom.

“I’m ugly!” Stella cried
As tear stained face met father’s chest,
And as he held her there his ears
Heard every hurt confessed.

And when her words subsided
So that only sobs remained,
Her father spoke some words to her
That Stella’s heart retained.

“Do you think I’m ugly?”
Was the first thing that she heard,
But though she stopped her sobbing
Stella didn’t speak a word.

Her father smiled and took her face,
He wiped away a tear,
And looking in her eyes he asked,
“Is Mother ugly dear?”

“No,” she whispered in reply,
“You’re both so very fair!”
Asked he, “So would I give my Wife
“An ugly child to bear?”

She looked into her father’s eyes
And knew the truth at last.
From that point on, her future
Would be nothing like her past.

Stella changed her mind that day,
And took a different view.
No longer would she meekly take
What others thought her due.

The day her father spoke the words
He spoke to sooth her sadness,
He never knew the part they played
In saving her from madness.

For Stella was a studious girl,
And brilliant without peer.
With talents lost forever
But for father’s loving ear.

Stella found her power though,
And pretty soon it led
To a brilliant girl who’d come to turn
Each and every head.

The chrysalis was opened to
A Woman self-possessed.
A Woman who would never give
Herself to second best.