:: Kairotic ::

Us

We wear our concave Stomachs
with such pride:
Daughters of Eve in size zero glory,
Hollowing out our minds
Following blind,
The gods of gloss and quick weight-loss.

We wear our polished Faces
with such pride:
Modern women in compact dust,
Filling in a glowing grace,
Killing pace,
The beauty of lines and nature's shine.

We wear our hideous Fears,
With such pride:
Tremulous girls in women's skin,
Trashing out our empty souls,
Crashing control,
The freedom of form, to not conform -

We are beautifully masked:
Staged and caged,
Within the velvet curtains of our modern misery.

***

At seventeen, my poetic wisdom bled itself into these watery, wary lines:

Loneliness is a corrosive, gnawing at my soul,
It drips and burns like acid, a fanged and vicious ghoul.
I hold your hand and still feel lost,
(a life our reckless love has cost!)
Loneliness is a corrosive, flaming at my face,
It skins and tears like poison, killing me in grace.

My mother found the poem, and I wonder if the shadowed look in her eyes meant that she has read between the lines and has seived - like the poet that she is - out the truth hidden weakly in my adolescent metaphors. I'm sorry. Both to my mother, and as one who could have been one.

My 23rd birthday looms ahead, a clown-faced reminder of my insignificant existence. Life doesn't begged to be lived. It merely aims to end. Humanity, tucked betweeen nature's stubborn narrative and its own bigoted needs, will amble along this dilemma until the echo of our private swan songs disappear in a fairy-swirl of dust.