Conquistadora

Glass double-doors, linoleum and lockers

weaving into labyrinths,

and maybe this is how Theseus felt

with string and sword, to fight the Minotaur.

No, it’s an amphitheater with that weird smell,

the ugly fluorescent lights like an ancient sun urging the slaughter,

and she looks like a gladiator might,

she looks like

every

failing

courage.

She doesn’t wear foundation or lipgloss,

she doesn’t straighten her hair,

just lines her eyes and lashes in black, wears it

like war paint:

Putting it on each morning alone in the bathroom is

her silent war dance.

She hasn’t broken down yet, she’ll never back down--

that’s what puts the target on her back.

On the worst days, she finds herself running,

in flight from the Aztecs, found cornered in

the humid jungle of the girls locker room,

her people, any ally, nowhere in sight.

She looks her strongest with her back to the wall.

Like every fighter,

she’s haunted by the knockouts.

(Pretty teenaged girl,

high heeled boots and books,

oddly quiet, stoic, but so nice):

She doesn’t realize her victory,

that high school is four years of history

we all get too wrapped up in,

in the heat of hormones and fresh blood,

it all takes on the air of myth.

This is where she’ll earn her first scars.
This is where she’ll learn to lose gracefully, gloriously.
This is where she’ll learn she’s her own cause,

she’s a cause worth fighting for.