Pink fabric enrobed Blue lines pages Marked with a rose colored satin ribbon Yellow legal pads Erupting with tight cursive arcs Of the characters in her head Brown skinned girl bent over a book Sheltered in her closet Escaping into technicolor worlds To world building in shades of her own Hope rose from darkness But Little girls grow up Big dreams overshadowed, left fallow Buried Beneath obligations and a sink of dirty dishes Bright roots awaken Cardinal clad Gray lined pages Bursting within a tight elastic band From darkness, hope rose