Where Does It Hurt?

I met a woman today with heartbreak blue eyes

She captivated me despite the sadness I felt in her presence

 

I stared, holding her eyes, holding her pain

As if she knew I felt her sadness too and wanted to explain why,

she asked me, “If you had a daughter and she ran away on your birthday,

where would it hurt?”

I touched my heart.

 

“If your own daughter turned on you, deceived into believing she had to earn satan’s favor by cursing you and planning harm for you, where would it hurt?”

I arched my back, as if feeling the arrow between the shoulder blades.

 

“If your daughter was raped and you were called to the crime scene,

And you held a body that was alive but dead inside, eyes of a robot, a heart you love, murdered

And you, holding her – skin hot to the touch but heart cold as ice – helpless,

Where would it hurt?”

I touched my stomach as if I might vomit.

 

“If you had a daughter who believed the lies spoken about you by the betrayal of a friend, and she betrayed you, too, where would it hurt in your body?”

I felt my forehead, skin getting hot like a fever.

 

“If you had another daughter who ran away in the dark cover of night, and you waited for her, but she did not return, where would it hurt in your body?”

My lungs constricted and my shoulders drooped with invisible weight.

 

“If some of your children were out on the street, even by their own choices of running away and refusing to come home, would you be able to eat without thinking of them?

Sleep without wondering if they are safe?

Look at family photos and not feel your stomach sink?

Ask God why over and over again?

If your own children rejected you like this, where would it hurt in your body?”

Everywhere. I ached everywhere.

 

And suddenly, I understood her pain, fully, wholly, and I ached for the woman I saw behind the heartbreak eyes, a light that seemed smothered, tattered, losing hope

I reached to touch her

But my fingers touched glass

and I wept for her

The woman in the mirror