Beauty vs beast

The petals of the rose
Draw all the attention away from the thorns
It is fascinating how a single flower can be so beautiful
Yet contain a hint of ugliness in it to
Just like the peacock
Which has a million stunning feathers on its tail
Drawing attention away from its feet
It saddens the peacock itself
When it compares its beauty to the deformity it contains
Nothing is perfect in this world
Dont expect it to be
If these beautiful creations contain imperfection
Remember somewhere we are also flawed

If I were a peacock,
I would blue-green iridescent burst beauty
pretty would not mean strange or weak
brightness would be bravery, screaming LOOKING THIS GOOD IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SAFETY FROM PREDATORS
I would love my women drab, concealable, nearly invisible
... maybe some of us are already part peacock

If I were a leopard slug,
I would never worry if I was man enough
I would love all of my hermaphroditic glands equally
or, more realistically, I would be ashamed of all of them equally,
never sure if my gonopore was symmetric enough,
if my translucent blue-white ***** was beautiful enough to ever intertwine and bloom with another's
there would be no gay bars or marriage equality movements or swallowed-wink "no ****"s
no one would tap around your abdomen in search of the right organs before declaring your birthright aptitude in cooking or car repair
you and I, we would follow each other around all night, exchanging playful licks, before impregnating each other, circus-suspended from a tree branch
... I guess that part would be the same

If I were cricket or frog or songbird, my music would be my perfect gift to you.
I would learn guitar and start a band and
everyone would love me
(way more than the bass player)

But I am a man.
I don't know what that means yet.

in a room full of peacocks
i am now an ostrich
and i don't know if any of you know how it feels to be a splash of grey in a room full of brilliant blues and greens
it's like being a lonely, pitiful cloud against a blue sky with leafy trim
maybe i have my head in the sand because i don't want to be shallow
but you'd be right if you guessed it's because i actually don't want to be seen when my face looks like this
which is such a cowardly thing to do
(i really shouldn't care)
i read Journey to the Center of the Earth in middle school,
and the only thing i remember is that it was the volcanoes that erupted (like the hives that erupted across my face this past week) that led them to find it-
the heart of life and natural beauty; more breathtaking than the flawless plumage of the peacocks

Elephant seals
gross and flabby
ignorant of protocol
ponderously scratch.

Uniformed unicorns
importune
tame peacocks
wearing pink petticoats.

Fluted columns fade
at twilight
into the secrecy
of a passing thought.

Toy soldiers
on parade
fragile, glittering
lost.

All this time you told me that the cotton candy was pink
So I ate at the fluff behind the drywall
I ate it all away
Wondering why I got colder as I did so

Do you know why the peacocks are always alone
I’ve never seen more than one at a time
And I suppose it is because they show all of their colors at once
That isn’t allowed in this game, is it
I thought not

I don’t want to have that kind of plumage anymore
Turn my skin gray and wrinkled and I will sit by like the elephant in the room
Because I never asked you questions you didn’t like
I never asked you to empty the sky into a pitcher just for me

Do you know why the peacocks walk all alone?
Curious, isn’t it?
No friends at all.