I celebrate my ugliness
this morning, ugliness clings
like a loathsome slug.
head, pillow-tossed and wild.
eyes, cadaverous and strange.
skin, pale, seeming bloodless.
clothes, rumpled and unclean.
my lack of symmetry is so complete,
nothing can contest its perfect inelegance.
I cast my scowl
on the light of day.
brightness so clean and pure,
it makes clear how
ill shaped I am, how ill made.
disheveled, unkempt,
wrapped in this comfortable rawness,
I brave the world outside.
soon the mannequins discover me.
holding their raised noses,
they rush past me
to avoid contact,
to avoid contamination.
their faces curse me,
appalled by my presence,
social mores insulted
by the riddle I present.
they can’t understand
how someone so decayed,
so afraid,
so alien
and so alone
can still manage a smile.