The moon was my mistress tonight. She offered me light when it was needed, and never was it too harsh as the sun, that gaseous blimp in the morning and evening sky. His conceit to reveal his ostentatious rays were unlike the moon who looked so beautiful in her silver linen of light and her drapes of dark clouds overlapped each other in a silken pattern. Her black and silver cloth combined to create shapes of known and unknown animals.

The animals flew to cover her face momentarily covering her true beauty only to reveal that extraordinary face surrounded by sparkling gems like a goddess that could rival Aphrodite. It was not until I examined closely that I saw those few blemishes on her face. Those dark spots located in a spontaneous order, but it only added further to her beauty. It was in her imperfections that she rivaled the illusion of Aphrodite. With her flaws, she symbolized true beauty by having the ability to reveal her disfigurements and still remain the most beautiful heavenly body.

The moon’s light came down to reveal only the bare essentials of the earth. She allowed enough light to see, but not to examine the other beauties of the planet. It was almost like she demanded the attention after living in the shadow of the sun quite literally.

The sky seemed to be so dark and uninviting in comparison to the moon. It was like staring into the eyes of an apathetic killer. It held the moon gently as a father would. My mistress was suspended in the sky. She floated above the earth gracefully held by the sky’s imposing body.

The sky stood by her side as a defender, almost daring me to approach her and giving me an impending doom that would fall upon me. Perhaps, Chicken Little dared to look upon the moon and that is when the sky fell on him.

My mistress revealed the world in a monochromatic fashion allowing for fantasies of old drive-in movies and black onyx set in pearl. The trees were silent in such a night, and not a single sweep of wind came to disrupt the sleeping trees. My mistress demanded total respect for this night which only occurred every thirty days.

Her peerless body wrapped in dark silk, the moon glided across the night sky as if she had all the time in the world, and she did. She would not allow anything less from her subjects. She would not allow her few moments of glory to be taken from her.

Even the smallest of creatures honored the moon’s enchanting presence. They dared not move nor buzz nor hum. They sat and meditated on the spell that the moon had placed on them. They had desired to become as I was. They wanted to be one with the moon as I was, for she guided me in the darkest of nights, and would never forsake me when I needed her.

It was then that the sky began to ripple. The moon began to dance and the stars were a chorus line. Her face smiled at me once final time through the mirror of the water. She knew that I thought I was not worthy to see her face-to-face. The connection was finally interrupted. I had become as those small creatures and once again the wind swept through the world.

my story starts in North Carolina morning at 5:32
where I was excavated from my mother's womb
2 weeks past due
and immediately taken to an emergency room
because of a minor disfigurement called
ulnar polydactyly
where they laid me down and cut flesh & bone away

value your days and spin on a tire
at the bottom of a tree, twist the rope.
cut away any fray and pickle your desire
it's not a noose, it's not your hope.

i was born differently than peaks explained
i was told medical bills were a blessing obtained
so that my fingers would not continue to grow
so that fortunately, none of us will ever know
where those bitty bits would want to go
where would I go?
if I hadn't been bound
by what I hadn't contained?

how do parents agree to cosmetic surgery on their newborns?

don't they feel sick?

when my mother explained why i had these scars
She didn't ask how they felt on my hands.
and when my father kissed the bumps crunched on cars
He insisted that I had intact, normal, nerve strands.
But I could feel phantom fingers
and devil horns

don't they feel sick?

now I spend every day
chewing all the rest away
Now I count months and men
Men, who will cut their brood out of their only mate
to slice off any disfigurements and hold its jaw in place
then ball those hands in fists so her fingers can rest in peace

please
Listen when I ask for help
don't Give up on my body, just
cut the hearts of those playing God, for
anything Or anyone can happen to a newborn child, or
else, not again, it's
off, not again, not
today, not again.

I'm 6 years old, alone and terribly
glad to be awake
free of the villain that I’d been
free to make
Chunky animated evil clouds and monsters
with human names
mistrusting my family from the
earliest days
imagining my parents were zipped up
in skin resembling mine
their starchy air force uniforms
finding me everytime
Then my baby brother was on time, cooked just right,
born perfectly
When I found out about his circumcision I stopped
feeling sisterly

Why were my sweet, placid parents so surprised by us?
Keeping their secrets and distance from us.
Give us the answers, show us history!
why take me to Sunday School if you
won't sit through all of it with me?

there is nothing more disturbing than weekly church hopping.
there is so much to fear if we do not plan on ever stopping.
when I look for friends
i do so excitedly
looking for their ailments
and finger ******.
wondering who else
is in horror
of their size,
of their capacity.

"Look at these baby spiders in our garden,
Look, momma. They're so tiny.
The pumpkin nearly squished-
There's a centipede!" I'd be whining.
But, oh,
It's gross. I hear "eww" and "oh my god" and
"throw it away, bugs belong outside!"
I can do that. We all belong outside. I can do that.

From Santa Monica to Rapid City
I turned 8 and avoided depression
I plagued every single bookstore with
my ridiculous obsession:
ecology
Tornadoes, forests, food chains and chemistry
already fascinated me

I loved that;
the atmosphere of creation.
Shapes alive
with Movement and
centrifugal Force,
stopping motion, Pressure,
inertia and Speed.

I studied
legs. I watched the
long propelling jumpers, the
tool-like structures, of
insect tarsal claws, and
the spurs like knives.

Then aquatic mammals came to me
Where I first learned about ***:
the whale's hip bone, a mystery.
To the history of earth, it was
Big males, powerful females.
and evolution seemed to be the cause.

Then arboreal anthropods,
Where I first asked about distribution,
toes and fingers,
and counted
on hand
the numbers
and suddenly
deplored extinction.

It was a hot knife in my belly that never went away
I want to ask their god all the questions that besot me
why did they agree (twice!) to cut away that which is not rotting?
If DNA is best selected among genetic diversity, why must we all look and feel the same?
Blanching at any difference, hating on new names.

is it such a disaster
to expect variation from your master?
why are 2 extra phalanges
such ******* calamities?
Why do we observe differences
as an excuse to mutilate newborn babies?
Americans slice ******* off intact baby boys
Americans slice ******* off intact baby boys

A doctor deemed my extensions useless
but left me my brain and heart
which began to terrorize me
from the very simple start

I dreamed of all of us:
scary islands with giant magical
flowering
who was poisonous
to the population of anyone and
anything
who was dangerous
printing off the battle plan which was
escaping
Yes, I dreamed of all of us

Landing at Belfast International Airport always made Byron feel better, but nowhere near the way he used to feel when Megan was alive. He was glad for the busy workload ahead of him, a very welcome distraction.
The latest nightmare revealed more to him than usual, which, according to his phsychiatrist, was a good thing. Climbing into a  cab, Byron opened his laptop and immediately noticed the little envelope at the top of the screen. Messages from the site. Beautiful Words was a luxury, especially since adding his new friend, pen name Maiden, real name, Holly.
Byron could be a normal person on the site, no disfigurements, no judgement, and nobody would ever know about the fire, his failure to save his Megan.Of course, people could read between the lines but that was unlikely.
The message from Holly read "Dearest Phantom, i was so moved by your latest poem..." It went on to state her amazement at Byrons last name, Lorde. " is it really true? so, your name is lord Byron in reverse?" Byron felt a little flutter of excitement at the thought of someone noticing his name, for the first time,.
Byrons mother was a lover of poetry, especially romantic poets, hence his name.The opportunity was irresistable , her name being Lorde.Megans grandfather would poke fun at Byron, saying he was lucky his mother didn't like Edgar Allen Poe.
He almost replied immediately but noticed he'd reached his destination, shutting the laptop, promising himself to pay more attention to beautiful Words, Holly, Jester,  and the rest of the crowd.
Byrons shrink was moonlighting at the local hospital, community work made him feel more human, less robot-like."Well well well," Byron and jake were friends from way back, even before Megan.After the fire,Byron would surely have given up, had it not been for Jake.He poured them both a mineral water while Byron made himself comfy, he knew the drill. The age old cliche, lay down on the couch, close your eyes, "Count backwards from 10, slowly drifting off the closer you get to 1,".
Byron could smell the smoke, taste the charcoal at the back of his throat. He could see her, more clearly than before....

Our Father, who art in heaven
I have some confessions.
I am terrified.
Of what?
Everthing.
I break into plague-like bubonic hives when I worry about THE future, my future,
any future because it does not involve any of the nows.
Moments of newness and unclarity, of strangers and distant conversations of topics I know not of yet,
weeks in agony trying to earn money for rent,
days waiting for a sign, in the form of a plus or minus, to dictate whether or not
a parasite grows in my womb.
Father, I sin daily
for I am a glutton
in my eyes.
I see flaws in my appearence,
though no horrible disfigurements exist;
in my thoughts, this is even more unforgivable,
the invention of sorrows that are not mine,
the pitiful desire for perfection.
I feel I do not deserve the wonders that I have.
Grant me the ability to feel secure and grateful
rather than worthless and guilty.
Oh brother, woe is nobody
for all is too good to waste,
yet nearly impossible to entirely feel.

a beast growing

thorns from his bones,

depetaling a rose-mind.

picking up on the scent

of rot.

lets out a muffled cry,

hidden among the latest

twist of crooked trees.

and in the luminescence of the morning
the sun’s rays traversed across my fragile frame
revealing the sparse white lines dwindling away
plastered over my thighs, hipbones and my wrists
however I now have the consent to accept such disfigurements,
each holding a distinctive tale of how it came about.
i untangled myself from the white linen
and in the most undiluted form of myself,
i finally had the consciousness
i was no longer timorous of life itself,
it is truly time to experience vitality
-r.s

She was dressed in the sins that matched mine,
She exuded imperfections as she walked
and her eyes bore the scars
Of seeing through a screen
In a life spent a life spent half-mad

She made me feel okay to be flawed
I no longer looked in the mirror
And felt like I was chewing on the glass
Swallowing whole the shattered shards
To hemorrhage what was left of my self-esteem

Yet, now that she's gone away..
I'm tearing at my skin again
Abrasing my blemishes,
My specks, and my spots
Re-opening old scars
Astonished by imaginary disfigurements.

Now I sit here, look in the mirror,
Blood is running down to the sink,
I'm chewing on glass again.

Escapism as a form of affection
Even when I close my eyes I can feel my disfigurements emerging
My head is too heavy for sleep

The oozing, the subtle sting, the infinite burning, the bandages; life pours out of my sutures and gaping incisions
My real self is a part of my past

I cannot feel my face
I cannot save myself from my thoughts
I am as much of a ******* as I am a parasite; flesh is the ultimate interloper and my organs are divided into spheres of influence

My body is colonized and turned into the birthplace of my disease