Thirteen and naive, I was;
My first year in high school;
Neither child nor adult;
The advent of teenhood.
Prone and untested--
Body, mind, heart, and soul--
Complete, open, and whole.
I was Mama's beaming girl.
I lacked a spate of implements.
Too young, too foolish--
Vulnerable to fiends;
Who wanted to be friends.
Mama taught me, mainly,
To see the good in everyone.
I wish she, also, enlightened me;
On how to decipher malevolence;
That was cloaked as benevolence.
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