The trees, with their shiny, glistening apples, are popular all around.

The big burly beings love making a game of trying to pick only the finest crops.

Yet, the ones who are second-best will always be left behind and put down.

Sometimes, I wonder: What happens to the nicest apples?

Do they go out to live their lives to the fullest extent after being plucked?

Slathered in praise and adoration like caramel?

Or are they left to rot in the sun, like me?

Sadly, I will never get to live like the plucked apples

Their lives like  rollercoasters

With twists, turns, and excitement.

Because I will never be the nicest apple, 

purposefully plucked from the caring branches of its mother tree.

There will always be a better option–sweeter and shinier than I.

Oh how I beg and plead every night in my prayers

“Please, make me the sweetest and most beautiful fruit.”

“Make me the fruit that is unharmed and unscathed like a baby who has been bathed in love its

 whole life.”

However, unlike the child,

 my bath has been filled to the brim with not love, 

but tears.

Tears of sorrow and jealousy that I cry because I cannot change.

Because I cannot change who I am.

Because I cannot erase my flaws,

Each bruise from when I fell from the warm embrace of the tree.

Each scratch that I acquired during my descent.

And each lopsided side that I was born with,

I can only hope that an apple picking being

 will accept me for my unlovable characteristics,

instead of shunning me like an ugly pair of shoes, 

haphazardly discarded in the back of a closet.

I can only hope that one day, just like the nicest apples, 

the lopsided ones will have a chance to be picked, too.