*****

Recorded Reading (1:05): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ljbbo93x8oq09j7rj8qxg/Be-That.mp3?rlkey=xp51tlr1elfup0hv4pxqb7x1l&st=08i9pv4h&dl=0

*****

Be That

If you are exceptional
And outrageous — be that!

Wear your real, your real, your real
Your real outrageous hat

Don’t you worry ’bout it
When the ladies cut you dead

They just haven’t followed
Where you’ve already led

Just think how awful, darling,
How awful it would be

If felt you had to go like them
Acrimon’iously

Toward somebody they’re afraid
That inspiringly

More interesting than themselves
Will turn out to be

Afraid that when they afterward
Speak they will be heard a bore

Too much effort to uplift
Their downlooking selves the more

Rather than something of value
To posterity bequeath

Reflexively they felt they had to
Put you them beneath

Unable to process softness
For too many damn teeth

*****

The poet/editor of this website is physically disabled, and lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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