Definitions: Beautiful
by Lynne Goldsmith
I am not what you’d call beautiful.
I’ve no white skin or blonde hair
the way that I’d want,
no long legs or big breasts
or straight teeth or slim hips to waist.
I’m just a girl in shabby clothes
who wonders when I’ll eat again
or bathe or go to the schoolroom I skip
out of repeatedly. I’m on the run now third time
from home and from myself over and over—
girl overlooked—
the one who can’t stand to see herself,
who avoids mirrors or talking outright,
needing to shun people as much as possible.
I want to fade like water sucked up dry
in the cracking desert sands that I see in pictures.
How I want to fade like sun at day’s end
or like a life grown old that waits for ashes.
I want to disappear now, knowing
no one will understand my need to
just be myself and to be glad. To revel in that.
That, that would be my definition of beautiful.
—
Lynne Goldsmith’s forthcoming poetry book, Secondary Cicatrices, won the Halcyon Poetry Contest and will be published by Middle Creek Publishing. She has been a semi-finalist in The Nation magazine for the Discovery Poetry Contest and my poetry has been published in Spillway, Red Owl Magazine, Soul Fountain, Geronimo, Manzanita, Squaw Review, Parody Poetry Journal, Thimble Literary Magazine, among others.