“I underestimated your body”

Subestimei seu corpo
Corroído por sua alma.
Subestimei sua mente
Iludida por seu coração
Subestimei até aquilo à minha mão.

Mas não subestimarei
Aqueles que me amam
Porque sem eles
Simplesmente
Não seria
Eu.

Gabriela Helena de Oliveira Borges was born on November 25, 2000, in a city in the interior of São Paulo, Brazil, called Franca.  She is the third and youngest child of a fierce and kind couple.  She was educated in private secondary schools and it was in the first of these, Escola de Arte Criativa Toulouse Lautrec, that she discovered the magic of art and developed her charm for writing, always with the support of her family.  For two consecutive years she won first place in the school poetry competition and she never stopped writing.  She currently attends hight school at Novo Colégio, in her home city.

I underestimated your body
Corroded    by   your    soul.
I underestimated your mind
Deluded      by   your   heart

I underestimated even that within my reach.
But I will not underestimate
Those people that love me
Because without them
I simply wouldn’t
Be
Me.

Tucson, Arizona born-and-raised, Shelby London Salemi practices capoeira angola and is earning her MFA in Writing at the University of California San Diego.  Her writing has appeared in the online journal Spiral Orb and the 2016 print anthology The Sonoran Desert: A Literary Field Guide.  She is working on her first novel.