One of the greatest reasons that I constantly read and explore writings is for that one moment when I’m reading and I get confused. Confused because I could have written it. In fact, I think this author hijacked a piece of my very soul and I’m just now stumbling across it.
And it is moments like these when I understand why so little of art comes from original thought. It’s also these times when art becomes ever more beautiful.
So with those thoughts in mind I fashioned this poem with all respect and flattery towards Margaret Atwood’s poem Heart.
Brain
Some people use their smarts. You roadblock them.
It was either that or your popularity.
The difficult part is covering up that damn intelligence.
A sort of evanescence effect, like smoke on gray mornings,
glimpse of ignited coals,
and then, OMG! Is that, like, even real?
You hide your self
like a broken dog in dark places.
There’s a mini skirt and heels, the noise
of once beloved pages turning in the wind
and there you are, a tiny air-brushed carbon copy
of the almost-real girl, no brain to see.
The absence is talked of. It’s a black hole. It’s ridiculed,
but also normal. Too blond, says one. Too common.
Too much makeup, says another, raising an eyebrow.
Each one is a qualified judge,
and you stand listening to all this
in a bathroom stall, like a shell-shocked mime,
your trained, lip-glossed mouth closed against the bright intellectual
deep in your mind and soul,
silently, brainless.
