"unbeautiful" poems
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also,with the church’s protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
….the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless,the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy
7.8k
Unbeautiful, unbeautiful
Unhandsome and unimportant
This one goes out to the losers
All the liars and the thieves
And the wannabe beauty queens
You're never going to shine
Not even for a little bit
So get off the stage
Before the booing crowds take seize
Unbeautiful, unbeautiful
This one goes out to me.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 4:03 PM UTC
he promised he'd take her out on the town at a quarter past three
and by a quarter of three she was dead in the living room
with her father's linens draped around her ankles
and below her skin, a purple fountain flowing
he promised her father he'd mend the holes in the linen
which had stained dark after her ascension
after her stomach acid bore craters into the floor polish
after her tongue fell from her lips to kiss the lace
and then men with suitcases took her body away at a quarter past three
they came without breaking or collapsing in the living room
they shrouded her in clinical-white sheets
and walked out the door bearing stoic expressions
leaving nothing but the world behind them
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 6:52 AM UTC
Before last night, I'd only seen the forbidden-fruit curves and
ripples
rendering my skin unbeautiful.
But in the fluorescent indifference of a drugstore
I caught sight of my legs through eyes not my own,
new tapers and bulges swathed in black spandex
even too flimsy for the $15 price tag,
and wondered why words like "small" and "gap"
were heaven to my ears,
while "quadriceps" and "endurance"
have their own quaint ring,
a lovely taste on the tip of a tongue
which has spent too much time
wallowing in self-hatred.
Strength isn't a virtue in women,
we who learn from birth to take up
as little space as possible.
Our shapes always need shaping,
guiding,
sometimes our own voices telling ourselves
we deserve the pain of fatigue
after one mile too long spent running
up the avenue,
forcing ourselves to faint
for a glimpse of thinner thighs,
we deserve to be dehumanized
if we don't inch our way into
the body laid out for us by
Mother Society.
Where is the place for the girl who
hobbles home, skin bruised purple
but flushed with the accomplishment of stopping
every single shot in practice?
Or for the boy whose gentle hands provide
the perfect perch for a butterfly to land upon?
My strength is not an imperfection.
There is beauty in it, and discipline.
These legs can take me for miles if I
take off the iron vest that keeps me
anchored to a Hollywood version
of myself.
Without it, I can fly.
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 8:33 PM UTC
To love and be loved
We all crave the same fiery temptation
To feel and to be numb
We contrast the beauty of love
To be broken and to be rebuilt
We have all seen an illusion of love
To smile and to cry
We fear love because sometimes love hurts
To drown and to float
We sink in despair, waiting to be rescued
To be confident and to be insecure
We weren’t born the same
Most of us hate ourselves
Wishing to be remade
Or maybe wishing to never exist at all
To be heard and to be ignored
We hold everything inside because everyone on the outside is too busy to listen
To be untruthful or to be truthful?
Truthfully. .
We are blinded by our fears
So far deep in our tears
We run from love because we never been chased by love
We accept less because we think that’s all we deserve
We reject love because we are tired of getting hurt
We feel like we are ugly because he or she is more appealing
We camouflage ourselves because we feel like society will judge us
We die inside because we never felt alive
We limit love because we never experienced it’s measures
To love and be loved ?
We will never understand it’s depth
Why?
Because first we have to love ourselves
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 8:20 AM UTC
Look in the mirror. What do you see?
Unconventional beauty, isn't that right?
Everybody sees differently
But imperfection is not an ugly sight.
You look at yourself and wish that you were blind
Counting the flaws and things you could change
You're listening to the voices in your mind
Telling you that you look silly or strange
You wish you were someone people consider beautiful
But looks only go skin deep.
If you want true beauty, look into the soul
That's where things are so trivial and cheap.
Inside yourself is where the true glamour lies
Stirring, growing, inviting them in
Shining out through your eyes
Windows to a heart that's spread so paper thin
Wanting to fix, yearning to please
Make everyone happy and smile
She hides it well and succeeds with ease
But dark thoughts have been there for a while.
I'm not good enough
No one will ever love me
Anyone calls you pretty, call their bluff
They need glasses if they can't see
Exactly what you do when you look in that mirror
The moles, the rolls, the unwanted hair
All the imperfections couldn't be clearer
And you wish that you weren't there...
But you were made this way
Vision is not what people are all about
The beauty within is what you display
And that will make you gorgeous inside and out
Imperfection is not any ugly sight
And ignorance is not blissful.
Broadcast your heart, let it take flight
Never let anyone make you feel unbeautiful
It's only skin deep
And it all fades with time
Youth and grace you cannot keep
Death is a surely sign
Of how beautiful you were by all the people around
Who stand by your side
Even after you're in the ground
People need a lesson, some sort of guide
Attractiveness is in the eyes of the beholder
And once you learn you can't please everyone
Your feelings and thoughts won't smolder
Your judgement and make you want to run
Away from happiness and love
And from believing
That you aren't good enough
Because everyone is someone worth seeing.
Dec 31, 2013
Dec 31, 2013 at 3:14 AM UTC
If you go to the dictionary,
Flip to the letter L,
Find the word Lovely,
It'll probably be defined as
"Charmingly beautiful,
Beauty that appeals
To mind and eye."
But to me,
Lovely means all that
And more.
Lovely means
Being love,
Even when it means
Getting your hands *****
And feeling unbeautiful.
Lovely means
Getting up at 12:00 am
To change ***** diapers
Or calm someone down
After night terrors-
Because even if what you're doing
Isn't very lovely,
But you do it out of love,
That's when you are most lovely.
Lovely means washing the feet
Of those you hate-
Doing it with a smile
On your face-
And that's when you look
Most lovely.
Lovely is
Washing laundry
For the one thousandth time,
And cooking supper for your family,
Even when you're all cooked-out.
Lovely is
Giving birth
To the earth's Savior
In a ***** rotten, ugly-lovely stable
On a cold night.
Lovely is
Being beaten
With a cat of nine tails whip,
Hanging on the cross,
Bloodied brow,
Grieving heart.
Lovely is sacrifice,
And pain
And bleeding forgiveness
And scars of heartache
From what some would call
"Loving too much"
But if you live lovely,
You know you can never
Love too much.
Lovely is more
Than lipstick
And blush,
And fluttering your eyes
And faking the right smile.
Lovely is
Getting hands *****
And loving until
You don't think you can,
And then loving with all you have
And more.
Lovely is
More than being beautiful,
Lovely is living life
Beautifully,
Even when it means
Being unbeautiful.
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 9:35 PM UTC
.
Ah, but do you want to know my secret?
I draw with cold and unbeautiful silver,
& it comes out red.
…
Magic?
Oh? You want to hear a story?
I wanted to write exactly how I felt,
But I left the page,
b l a n k.
And I couldn’t have described,
It any better,
than that.
.
May 28, 2015
May 28, 2015 at 3:05 PM UTC
In this society, the beautiful is more loved
Accepted,
Cherished,
Adored,
Held so dearly.
Oh how difficult it is to hide
The unlovely
and ill favored sight.
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 4:51 AM UTC
The world weighs down upon the life examined.
But life is unsubstantiated;
Proof is sought in the darkness
with unbeautiful hands that extend
gracelessly into the unknowable,
Desperate for the horizon.
And we set ourselves on fire,
burning in blue flames,
to escape what we can't control
and to remember what it means to exist.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 11:04 AM UTC
i am the mundane
i feel so many things
but i spend my days attempting to conceal it
i have wings upon which i am sure i could fly
that i compress under the pressure
of my pathetic, self-inflicted inferiority complex
i am the mundane
i am not the spoken about
nor am i the one occupying any one person's thoughts
i may not be invisible
but i do not linger
the walls surrounding me are closing in and
my stomach rejects any thought of nourishment
my dreams keep shocking me awake but i cannot scream
i have so many stories to tell
but they all seem to pale in comparison
whenever someone else speaks up
i am the average
i am not ugly but i am by no means pretty
(although you would say "no, you're breathtaking" with a warm smile that would melt my frozen heart)
my words are by no definition astounding
but i thrive on them
(however you said once that my words are beautiful and therefore don't deserve to be read by unbeautiful people)
I have no quirks, nothing unique that I can boast about
(i wonder what your argument against that might be)
i stay idle in the same place
for hours on end
(but you give me validation because i am not lazy and i accomplish more than i give myself credit for)
i constantly find myself trapped in this hole
knowing full well that I dug it myself
but now, i can claw myself out
because i am not alone.
I am average (you see me as amazing)
You are incredible (you see yourself as sub-par)
I suppose we are two sides of the same self-loathing coin.
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 4:19 PM UTC
You rode bikes with Milka
to the bridge over the river
and stood looking down
at the flowing water
and talked
of the latest
Elvis Presley film
you’d seen
and she said that she
had wanted to see it
but her mother
had forbidden it
saying it was not
the type of film
for her age
then you talked
of the film you’d seen
while working
as a cinema projectionist
called Ben Hur
and the great
chariot races in it
she leaned close to you
as you talked
her hands
on the brick bridge
her hips pressing
gently against yours
she said she like it
when you came
to their farmhouse
and practised judo
with her brothers
and she could watch
and as she spoke
you studied her
her short fair hair
her large blue eyes
her delicate hands
the fingertips rubbing
against the bricks
of the bridge
the simple
green shift dress
she had on
and do you remember
that time you had them
both on the grass at once
in that karate fight?
she said excitedly
and you noticed
maybe
for the first time
her small firm bust
her figure
kind of huggable
although you hadn’t
hugged her
and she went on
about wanting to go
out with you
but her brothers
had said
Baruch won’t be
interested in you
he likes pretty girls
and you looked
at her eyes
as she spoke
how large they were
yet not unbeautiful
the orbs blue
portraying
wide worlds of you
and how old are you?
she asked
because they
keep saying
you’re too old
for me
16
you said
well
she said
I’m 14
so that isn’t
too old is it?
no
you said
seeing her eyes look
kind of watery
like small fish bowls
then she talked
of having seen you
in her dreams
and that in her dreams
you had kissed her
where did I kiss you?
you asked
on the lips of course
she said
no I meant
where abouts
was I when I kissed you?
o
she said blushing
in the barn
by the farmhouse
o I see
you said
never having been
there with her
only with her brothers
to do judo fights
she looked down
at the water
her eyes wide
and watery
a bird flew by
a bird song sounded
you leaned close to her
and kissed
her ear
through her
fair hair
and she looked at you
and you saw
new worlds
being born there
amongst the blue
Milka smiling
at an older you.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 1:59 AM UTC
Ugly are your wings so drab and dark
Softly bending against rippled bark
Golden borders with spots of blue
Dreary patterns of somber hue
Mourningcloak you are a fraud
A butterfly severely flawed
Unbeautiful as your name implies
The ugliest of all butterflies
Mental illness makes for fragile wings
Always falling short of better things
A dolorous sight of stark despair
And restless flights that go nowhere
Strange specimen caught in a net
To choose to live is to forget
That life will end but death won’t come
In the killing jar you just go numb
Through rounded glass will life transform
And taste so sweet of chloroform
A soothing bane breathed in real deep
Faint distractions drift fast asleep
Isolation keeps you who you are
Death is endless in the killing jar
Wings held outstretched on the spreading board
Pass deathless moments where time’s ignored
Pins pierce the body and puncture through
To hold you here but you’re not you
Pinned and labeled put on display
Pressed in a box and forced to stay
Immortalized in a private case
In solitude to hang in place
Repulsive feckless Mourningcloak
Now the symbol of life’s cruelest joke
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 6:49 PM UTC
Telling someone who is honest enough with you to admit they suffer the pain of feeling eternally unbeautiful that they are being annoying and making you uncomfortable and falsely self-deprecating, vain and attention seeking is like telling someone who is continually being stabbed that their screaming is annoying and making you uncomfortable and they are faking their agony and being overdramatic and attention seeking. Certain pains you just can't see. It doesn't mean they don't hurt and burn and shatter you. There are different kinds of pain. And this one is anguish like no other.
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 2:25 PM UTC
I do love life.
I believe there are so many beautiful things out there.
Like dust in the sunlight,
wildflowers by the sidewalk
or that boy with the dark hair on the train, yesterday.
Children laughing,
people holding doors for others,
saturday mornings.
Life is beautiful.
I just wish
that I
was one of those beautiful things.
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 10:41 PM UTC
Like beads are the years
that we string to make our lives.
Many times choosing the forms, weights, colors.
More often taking whatever is offered or found.
Your necklace seems of pearl
light and smooth.
Easy to the eye.
Mine, a patchwork of random creation.
Here, harmony.
There, mismatched and oddly combined.
But not unbeautiful.
A strong string runs through the middle of the two.
Faithfully bearing the uneven weight
and the growing heaviness
of our ever-filling lives
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 10:25 AM UTC
A daylight painted in a night shade
In the circle of a thunderous grumble...
'you have hid your beautiful self under
beautiful clothes'.
But then, I saw she spoke to no one.
Near the quiet
pathway which separated us from spirits
at the market
where three paths dance in direction of the gods.. .
Ah!
Aziza danced up dust to his sacred being
Magnified by the quiet presence
of the pathways.
She spoke again,
'good for you
You have hid yourself
Under the restful shade of earth'.
When I could see she was dressed
as the unbeautiful look
seated by some flesh of,
swollen earth,
I Knew
suddenly.
A daylight vanishing to her peaceful rest
In the circle of a thunderous grumble
I staring with her
at Silence...
Jul 9, 2016
Jul 9, 2016 at 6:42 PM UTC
Afraid to mess up
I think he's giving up
Hold up
Hold on
I've been waiting on this feeling for so long
He said "why are you acting so tough?"
"CAUSE TRUTH IS, I'M 50 SHADES OF TORN UP!"
My tears are now my thoughts
My thoughts are now my fears
I know you'll never love me even if I tried for years
I want to believe that you want me just as bad as I want you
The unbeautiful truth
That's why I silenced my love for you
It was too loud
The sound drowns out the side affects of you
As I cope with the symptoms
Chasing after your momentum
Kissing your flesh
Trying to get under your skin
I love you but I don't know where to begin
I'm shattered
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 8:55 AM UTC
still the words
do pierce my soul
and make me feel
unbeautiful
still the looks
do come my way
and make me feel
that i shouldn't stay
'why don't you come?'
the people ask
' we will have fun,
we'll have a laugh'
if only they knew
the reason why
sometimes people
will make me cry
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 6:50 PM UTC
I remember wondering
why anyone would smoke
knowing it would **** them.
I suppose I assumed that
it was for an Instagram picture
of a morning drag and coffee;
for friends and ten minute breaks
But I think it might be learned apathy
because who the **** cares about lungs
when they won't be the first part of you
to crumble into useless, unbeautiful ruin.
Nowadays I feel a lot like a smoker
for someone who's never touched a cigarette.
I'd end the poem here
but I wish, I wish, you wouldn't smoke
and I hope I don't die.
Dec 16, 2015
Dec 16, 2015 at 3:13 PM UTC
Lips of Ash,
Charred and cracked,
Carry my words to a god who's never cared.
Let her find them unbeautiful,
Not worship, nor prayer.
Aug 17, 2019
Aug 17, 2019 at 7:03 AM UTC
Art is subject to inspection (unscheduled)
Started out suspects whose inventions we let alope
Messages sent out of love that we let go
Readers unknown still we feel like we met though
Raw and unbeautiful
Scars we don't let show
Scarfs with no winds blown
Broken Hope's forgotten dreams
Her father's daughter mother's mean
Seldom on purpose unpurposely
Stolen she knows not the poet is me
Told how awful I am;
Though, it's easy to see
it's awful are we
Yeah, how awful are we?
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 9:51 AM UTC
Wake up.
Eyes jut open,
Laying on the hard wet sand of a beach,
Unbeautiful.
Gray.
Tan.
Cold.
The colors felt.
Change your ways.
Wake up warm.
Mar 23, 2014
Mar 23, 2014 at 11:55 PM UTC
She lurks in the darkness, waiting;
Watching with an evil glare, hating.
She waits for the perfect time to strike,
Magnifying everything I don't like.
It starts with a frown, a sad little moan.
As I fret each imperfection I've grown.
She hears my cries, laughs in delight.
Now is where we begin the fight.
She tears my flesh, claws my veins.
Though no one will hear my pain.
She laughs louder,
as the blood flows faster
and my tears fall,
like an April shower.
She thrives off my pain, though no one can see
The kind of pain she's throwing me.
She's a monster, a demon.
But the pain won't stop.
I call her my reflection.
I call her, Unbeautiful.
Aug 16, 2011
Aug 16, 2011 at 5:46 PM UTC
If I don't belong why am I here?
I don't belong
So tell me
Tell me why I am here
But everyone doesn't see it
They don't see that I don't belong
My quietness hides it
The way of my denyness
The way of my self lies it's...
It's self hatred, self harm
Why did I lie when I stood naked in front of a mirror and said out loud and in my head five times that I am beautiful?
I didn't believe one bit of every silable in that word
Not for myself
"Beautiful."
This is a lie I could never take in
Never believe in
Never see even if others try showing me
Imperfections Imperfections
I don't want to be perfect
I want to be someone else
Someone who's more than me
I want less and I want more
I want less of me and more of someone else
If only I was more
If I was more I could do better
Could be better
Only
Only I'm stuck with this
This unbeautiful me
An unbeautiful creature than everyone and no one sees
I am part of everyone and I am part of no one
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 10:13 AM UTC