I have a stall at the market every day of the week.
There are regulars and neighbors and those who only peek.
Today I watched a woman stand inside the square,
Fire on her face and tears inside her hair.
She said to those she helped,
Helped with all she had,
That she deserved respect for all she'd done and said.
The people that she helped made money from her aid and never gave her credit,
Never was she paid.
For months she did all she could do to help them in the end.
She gave and gave and never got until she took a stand.
Those who heard her clapped and said that she was brave to leave those who had used her to whom she gave and gave.
The takers called her crazy,
Said she'd lost her sense and at the end of day she walked away heart dense.
She came to my stall and rearranged my wares.
I had onions out for sale and at them long she stared.
I love the taste,
She said to me,
But I hate what they say.
I tilted my head and waited for her to go or stay.
That you can peel an onion and there's always something more.
I hate that,
She said.
You never reach the core.
I love what you have done today,
I told her from my heart.
There are those who will remember and for it have a start.
Yet here I am,
She said,
Alone and feeling lost.
I had to leave them,
She went on,
But there really was a cost.
I did it all for love,
I'm really not a fool.
I wanted to be appreciated for what I say and do.
They took my work and for a while I was flattered it was so.
They didn't remember my name.
After months I had to go.
I'm proud that at least now I realized what I did was so desperate to be loved I let myself get bit.
Across the square a shout came,
So loud the voice went hoarse,
Shouting at the woman with my onions of course.
It was her mother screaming like the world ending now.
The daughter recoiled so fast.
It answered my question of how someone would seek love where it never did abide.
How she missed it wasn't there and misread all the signs.
I gently moved to touch her wrist and told her something new I made up on the spot and hoped would get her through.
I took out a clean knife and cut an onion in my hand.
It's all about the circles that come round in the end.
The peel makes it harder to see them go around,
But no matter how you have it they still abound.
She listened to me but wasn't understanding what I said.
I took the knife and pointed to her mother still quite mad.
Our lives aren't lines but circles.
We repeat,
Repeat,
Repeat.
Unless for just one day we get up on our feet and stand inside a square in front of one and all,
Break free from our beginnings,
Not let them be our fall,
Then you are no shape a vegetable can be.
Then you have become a different kind of free.
She looked at me quite hollowed like she was drained of all.
What does it matter,
She asked,
When you still get the same call?
I smiled sadly and said it did that now she didn't fit.
No matter how many circles she found she'd stick out just a bit.
The circle is so sacred,
I told her as I cut.
Worshipped around the world in mansions and in huts,
What you did today was break free of the round.
Sharp of mind with self-respect you cut the circle down.
The circle so many worshipped like you yourself just said,
Tilting down her face and lowering her head.
I grabbed a different onion from underneath a cloth,
Still made of circles but no longer white,
The color of a moth.
It squished as I sliced it for her to see the rot.
Some circles need to be broken,
Whether others like it or not.
You can blame yourself for how things went today or you can see,
I looked at her mother,
How your circle was always gray.
You can be the rot and go around and round until it goes astray or you can be the knife and cut it all away.
Thank you,
She told me.
Words simple,
A bit frail.
I shall come back again,
She winked.
Perhaps when potatoes are on sale.
