Koan

She must have been...19? In the prime of her life.
Too old to be a high school sweetheart and too young to be a wife
And she had to face the world with one of the worst scars
Not just the bruise around her eye, but the one that alters who you are.

The scar that was inflicted by another human being,
Was radiating pain so common, yet so commonly UNSEEN.
I met this woman early in the morning on the bus
And what follows is the dialogue between the both of us:

"Excuse me, but I don't know if you could see,
That the painful look upon your face deeply worries me
And I know it's not my place to ask you why or when,"
But in reference to the bruise on her face I said,
"I'd like to know what happened then."

She turned and said 'Well I appreciate your concern,
And from this bruise there's certainly one thing that I've learned,
It's that I am a poor judge of character and now I know why,
I was terribly wrong in thinking that I had found a good guy.'

'You see, he comes home late every night drunk out of his mind,
And interrupts the peace when I try to unwind,
He brings home his idiot buds from the bar
And drives my seventeenth birthday gift because he doesn't have a car.
I don't think you know how much it hurts
To be with someone that continuously treats you like dirt,
And sometimes to him, me having feelings is a thought TOO unreal
And the last thing on his mind is the way that I feel.
Sometimes when he feels that I don't do something right,
We end up getting into these long, painful fights
And he has absolutely no qualms about raising his hand
And using it to strike me and reinforce his demands.
He expects three meals to await him everyday and
Lord knows that I really don't want to stay.
But I'm so afraid that if I just try to leave that...
That he just might try and find me.'

I replied, "Well I think I know what you should do,
Help him to understand what and who a real man is:
A real man is the one that can cook FOR you
And a real man will help with the laundry too
And a real man is the one who fixes YOUR car and makes sure that it's more 'pimped out' than his by FAR.
A real man is the one who defies the stereotype
And always makes you feel much more than alright,
A real man will always know what to say and do and
A real man will always want you for you.
A real man unclogs toilets and fixes sinks
And every winter morning makes you something hot to drink,
A REAL man is the one whose primary concern
Is providing for you the one thing that you certainly deserve: Love."