my pirate tooth grounds my smile
adds a down home comfort with every flash
of its misshapen place along my gums
relatability that ensures i’m not a goddess
perhaps an earth angel
though ethereal and surreal
with melaninated multitudes
and melancholy magnitudes
whose longitude extends passed average
with curved latitude that excuses fleeting attitude
listen, i’m a complexion that inspires erection
i mean affection
but i’m too busy rehearsing rejection
that for me,
mirrors always felt too far from the truth
like Negative Nancies and yes men
but never quite Amen
i’ve found solace in a beauty that everyone can see but me
because middle school left nerve damage where my sight can only see in the quiet moments
where glitz and glamour can’t talk their way past the velvet ropes
passed where the cameras can go, shut off when the light goes
who I am but i big booty and a smile?
a philsophical poet whose enemies with her people pleasing
a refined, reserved Ice Queen with the charm of the Sun
a quick-witted genius with a slow type of selfish ambition and philanthropic heart
a deep lover, ever deeper thinker
a fighter with a shield of love
a mosaic of wisdom and truth and power
dissociative embracing every layer of present, seasoned with the past, wafting the scent of the future to lure me forward, onward and along