Buzzed

Grace

Back and forth.
Relinquish and then resign.
Will there be a last time?
They say you have to choose.
They all tell me I must choose
"one of them," or the lonely road.
They say, "but why would you
want to do it? why if they look
at you strange? you used to
be so beautiful."

I still have tubes of it rotting
in some old bag little jars
collecting dust
artificially scented
and full of bacteria.
There's maybe 5 bags worth
of clothes of various
pretty shades and fabrics
just lying there piled on
a cardboard box and
a forgotten rocking chair.

I remember the spoolies
and the last things I needed
to feel "just right."
Already late as hell,
it would make me later,
anxious and my anxiety
would increase with
every insecurity every doubt
that something wasn't
quite perfect enough.

Then there was
that time I jogged through
a crosswalk in West Hollywood.
Years later in a different world,
and I had this thought,
"naked and I've never felt sexier."
My freckles showing on my lips.
A t-shirt and jeans.
I could always work the plainest
things and still look chic.

I stopped feeling that way a long
time ago now that everything
is an attempt to avoid
feeling the pain that follows me,
wherever I go every inch of skin,
all my joints and muscles.
I pull my sleeves over
my wrists. I tie my hoodie tight
around my face to keep out the
wind.
I exist in a way that makes me
seem almost invisible.

Funny how I feel the best truly
naked
because there's nothing there
to make me worry about how it
looks
or how I wear it.
At least my mind can come
in with the argument:
"anybody would enjoy this sight
or a lot of people," but then there's
that line of thought that it matters
at all what anybody likes or wants
but me: it doesn't.

I hate the way
my hairline is growing in,
and sometimes I miss looking like
an ethnically ambiguous barbie
because I know there are benefits
to being pretty.
I know people want
to know me more when
I fit a certain stereotypical image.
I know opportunities 
are offered to me and doors
are opened more easily.

But I also
and have known
the pain of it for decades.
It is harder to be hated and loved
in so polarized a way
to be typecast in
the snap of a judgment
to be treated like how
pretty you are is all that matters
than to be looked at like you
are disgusting or ignored,
and maybe they don't understand,
but I do.