The Timelessness of Her by Maira Zaidi

She, tattered up, stood patient for centuries.

Amidst animated talks

about the new hit and the latest miss,

she stood.

For years too grand for people to do the math.

They discarded her; a hag too old for any modern worth.

A prime of a mere twenty years, unable to catch up with

the emotional revolutions of her admirers

whom she lived for.

Her bones cracked at an insult

and skin withered at a compliment.

None of which was about her, yet her mind absorbed them all the same.

Until a clammy hand foraged its way

to her. Grasping tightly with admiration,

lifting her out of the suffocating confines of her devalued home.

Her old broken spine and wrinkled pages were no match

for the intellect and excitement of her newfound lover

who visited her everyday,

and heeded her words with curiosity.

The heat of her tale diffused into him,

restoring blood into cold fingers,

as they cleansed themselves from metal with parchment.

Five years later, someone sung her name again,

in a silky voice that echoed among the laughs of young ladies and gentlemen–

“teenagers,” they were now called.

Lifted into a circle,

surrounded by–unbeknownst to her–brothers and sisters who spoke the same tongue.

Those strange adolescents thought her fresh, weeping when she wept and

laughing at her wit and antique charm.

It happened much too quickly–

a careless push into a trash bin, not recycle,

in an act of sacrilege.

At the very least, she could go with some pride restored,

knowing in elder years, she was still thought worthy.

Timeless.