I'm sorry, but these words aren't going to spin a story from silver or light up stars in the sky
Sometimes, the poems just can't be beautiful

Beautiful is strange in that it has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with the pupils of your eyes
Like when I was little, I knew I was beautiful
Different beautiful than the other girls in my family-
Like a cherub with ringlet curls in the midst of hour-glass princesses-
But beautiful

I grew up a little and it had the opposite effect than you'd expect
Looking at my tall dancer friends somehow made me more stubbornly insistent that I was beautiful too
But differently, I noticed more now
More chest, more cheeks, all compacted into the rough shape of what a girl should be
So maybe more clasically pretty than a beauty

And then the depression, and then I lost weight
And for the first time, I could slide my hands up my sides and admit to myself that maybe they'd all been right
And that I'd been too fat and
Well, if anything good could come out of the depression it was that I was almost beautiful now,
Beautiful the way the world wanted me to be

And suddenly fear coiled around my throat, a viper paralyzing me with the idea that
I could easily fall back to before
A noose, for every time I tried to put food in my mouth

I started spending too much time by the mirror with my
shirt pulled up to my chest
So I could see the wedges of my ribs pushing through, like weeds cracking headstones at a cemetary
So I could run my hands over my collarbones and marvel at their solidity
Ignoring the cold cavern of my stomach and the shaking of my hands
Determining that 1200 calories a day was the recommendation to
lose weight at my short stature,
So I'd eat that, but somewhere in the back of my head it seemed simpler to round down to a thousand instead

You know what they say the difference between anorexia and dieting is?
They say that dieters have a goal in mind, a weight where they'll be happy whereas anorexics...
In my head, there was no goal, just less and less of me for the world to deal its deck of cards on
Because beautiful didn't matter any more and weightlessness was its replacement

I don't want to be like this
I wasted hours online, by the mirrors, shaking of cold and dizziness in my bed
I don't want to be like this
An alien structure of concavity and wasted bones the only end to this path
I refuse to be like this

I don't know if it works that way
But the laws of physics breakdown at some point anyway and so I will defy my own mind
I have watched this threat hurtle toward me, have seen it with through the pupils of my own eyes,
And it doesn't say very good things about my vision if I let myself be pushed to the side
A leaf ripped away by the wind

I will resist
I will feast on my fears
I will reclaim beautiful as my own, and project it, child-like, on every piece of my world

I refuse to be anorexic
And I will savor every taste of this life I can get
Before I die.

Alcohol encourages unusual behaviors,
As many may attest;
The fruit of drunkenness,
Embarrassment.

When I was ten, I saw a thing,
I've been reluctant to report,
But 45 years have come and gone,
And I find I have to tell someone
The tale of Christmas at my Gran's.

The neighbors came by invitation,
Arriving in style for a rural celebration,
In steady form, as alcoholics will maintain,
Little wobble in their walk,
Little slurring in their conversation.

What struck us into consternation,
Was Charlie's hairpiece, new and black,
Banded at one end, a horsetail piece,
Inverted and trimmed into a toupee,
How he'd figured out the thing,
Only alcohol could say.

The evening was funny,
With everyone not staring,
Taking sideways glances,
I'd say, "Please pass the peas,"
And look the other way,
Grinning slyly at my brother,
I ignored the warning glares
Coming from our mother.

The dining room grew warm,
With food and warming ovens,
My father trying to lead a conversation
About cows, and horses, Grandma's fritters,
Anything to keep the room from titters.

When old Charlie commenced sweating,
The crow-ish blackness of his hair
Revealed its shoe polish beginnings,
Trickling down behind his ears,
And then a rivulet released its flow
To wend its way beside his nose,
And dripping, dripping down, began
To drench his shirt, first the collar,
Vaulting lapels to his middle,
Until a river of black sweat
Drove to his belt, and trickled in.

T'was all that I could do
To look the other way,
To put Gram's napkins to my grin,
As Charlie's horse tail wig ran threads
Of shoe black down his nose and chin.

To this day, I cannot recall
Just how the evening ended,
I only know that afterwards,
For years, the family extended
The tale of Charlie's Christmas spree:
White shirt, horse toupee, and black ink,
Caused our parents to bring warnings
Of the dire consequence of drink.

I heard my mother's song,
Sounds of breakfast,the kitchen radio,
Smell of bacon on the rattling stove,
Heard the slapping wood and wire screen door.

Window open to the sounds of birds:
Liquid flute-songs of meadowlarks,
Chirruping robins on the lawn,
Raucous coughing calls of crows,
The rooster bragging out his strutting call.

Breezes lifted the wet scent of sod,
The ever present smells of earth fresh tilled,
And musty odors of last year's hay.
Life on the farm moving twilight to day...
Everything conspiring to call me to play.

In autumn
I try to imagine
That cooling nights
Are only Spring
Returning.

I imagine
Planting the garden
Again,
But old Frost
Reminds me
That second childhood
Is only the precursor
Of winter's death.

Norma McCorvey has died today
In assisted living in a Texas town.
She was Jane Roe in Seventy Three
when the court struck all restrictions down.
She was used by lawyers for their cause
Used by men and women both.
Once a Lesbian then a Christian
Her fame the thing she hated most.
The times have changed and many have died
Because of what that court decided.
Her child still lives; she was adopted.
Its Sad how we have become hard hearted;
Divided we are, now as then.
We never met, nor were we friends;
Goodbye Norma (Jane) McCorvey
May you rest in Peace at journey’s end.