Face, I'm only the one wearing you,
         but, I hated you like an enemy,
                   the skin clinging, parasitic,

to the heavy bones of my skull;
         a curtain to cover a window
                   that would rather have been naked.

At every mirror's flash, I cursed you,
         fat white balloon, eyes as wide
                   as saucers, and almost as cow-eyed round,

cheeks like a gluttonous squirrel,
         the entire braying, cackling zoo neatly
                   ensconced in one human head.

Now I know the truth of it, why,
         I'm as beautiful as Helen,
                   Aphrodite perhaps, foam-covered gorgeous.

I should dance naked in shells,
         bring war into the hearts of
                   wholly virtuous men, saints

corrupted by just the look of me.
         I'll hone my eyelashes until
                   they are weapons, poised, at the ready,

to bat and make men lie down like dogs.
         No one will ever believe I used to be ugly.
                   They'll whisper, emphatically horror-filled,

"Oh, no!" And I'll smile, Marie Antoinette with her cake,
         my luscious lips curving like a sharp half moon,
                   and gloat to my face that I've won.

08/12/2005

Author's Note: Slam poem. "Quiet accomplishment." Whatever. I'm hot. Or not. Satire.

Posted on 08/13/2005
Copyright © 2023 Aaron Blair