It’s not as if I ask to be
the girl on the margins,
the one going left
where others turn right.
Mother says I’m just sensitive.
I see and hear things
when others are blind and deaf.
But sometimes I wish
my ears would stay closed.
When I overhear my brother Jean say,
“Jehanne is so odd. Perhaps
something’s wrong with her,”
I wish I could unhear those words.