Passerby

her fingertips are frigid and her figure is frail, so she scurries in the flurries that the winter entails
a few years of heartbreak since the loss of her father, and too little a voice to ever cause any bother.
She bit her tongue in the case of an error and with heart-pinned-to-sleeve, she was the shy wearer—
she passes, face-down, the boy of her dreams
because quiet love is silly, or so it seems
and he told her, “be yourself, kid, that will always be enough,
but if you are not willing to sound stupid,
then you don't deserve to be in love."