I know I aint much for looks
And you might not disagree when I say
Statues have more substance than this
I know I can’t Stendhal you to a standstill
It doesn’t mean that I can’t make you breathless
Like when I make you laugh

There is so much beauty in your laughter
That while you are wiping tears out of your eyes
Doubled over like you were trying to find your breath on the floor
I forget that I don’t like the way I look when I smile
And I smile

I know the math of aesthetics is lost on me
But you can save your symmetry
For building blocks and butterflies

Bad habits
Scars
And an awkward affinity for lopsidedness
Made me

Come

Balance me out

Because so often I feel like a fat kid
Sitting on a seesaw
Alone

Or a ******
Trying on different sizes of life
In carnival mirrors

Or a Greek artist
Who has chiseled all the wrong parts
To perfection
Before he understood realism

Realism
Is a twin sized bed at 3 am
After the cold seeps through the window pane
It is cobwebs stained black from a house fire
Before
I never realized we had that many
It is a vanity
Reminding me how not to be vain
Unless you mean this poem
This poem is vain

Realism
Is this
It is me
And it is you
Perfectly human
And nowhere near beautiful
Unless beauty is symmetry
And symmetry is when you balance me out
By being the other fat kid on the seesaw
Or the person who makes normal mirrors
So I can see what I look like in my own skin
Not perfect
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have ways
Of making you breathless

Come

Let me make you laugh again
Let me make you breathless