This poem sat on my computer in various scraps for years. It started out bitter and detached but became inspirational… I think.
Maybe it’s still scraps. But I feel like it works.
See, I Can Do It Too
Beauty is a cold war
of cold creams and old dreams.
We’re in an arms race of allurement,
knee-deep in Vaseline and expectations,
dangling a lit match and whispering
you get indifferent first.
So no self-effacing, a selfie facing
those well-strung masks.
We can adopt Comedy, poise paralytic:
every post a pick-me-up,
every Snap a sell,
thumbs covering
the drunken nights and irreverent fetishes
so no one can confuse our appearance with our images.
Or, Tragic, revel in dishevelment,
photos filtered but cigarettes not,
for sadness the brand: Preaching peak minimum,
swaddled in ripped jeans, flannel,
and hashtag security blankets
knit in pocket supercomputers.
But either way,
fame is cheap.
Inflation does that.
It takes lots of work
to be concertedly ignored, or stir guilt
when glossed over.
Caked in Adobe clay, some wait
for the reblog of a lifetime,
the intentional accident,
the headshot launched, Voyager-like,
that’ll unlock their day job,
riding a stream of unconsciousness.
And the hope grows but flickers:
batting at shadows, Plato’s Allegory
of the gravely misjudged chances.
Freak flags lower to half mast.
But if the internet’s a big sweets machine,
I’d rather be a cake than a cog.
When it comes to popularity, I’m ashamed
to say I’m shameless—Better hell in the Top 40
than heaven with Pitchfork.
So I follow
models, vloggers, icons, artists,
and tell myself I’m a conscientious objectifier:
ready to Like unto others
as they Heart unto me.
But at the end of the day,
you’re still only ones and zeroes in my screens,
if not for minds then behinds,
set to amuse on the pot or the bus,
or when my desktop’s froze up,
en route to real life.
Pitch a show, rock a suit, tell a joke—
it’s all been done before,
there’s just quicker memes and more greenscreens now.
And it goes to show how
love is contagious,
not airborne.
The admiration to spur a fan page rampage;
to call a dox or charity drive with equal ease;
to lob a line or look into a crowd and have catchphrases
echo back at you like grenades full of validation.
And every comments section squabble, an exercise
in mutually assured instruction:
Pity or competition.
Learn your place or take his.
I’ve stared at UFOs less spellbound
than those accounts.
Beauty? Fame? Love?
What’s it take,
what strand to grasp
to untie this Gordian knot
or simply cut and run?
I could be you if I wanted to—
the sloth’s refrain.
But the truth remains:
Bodies can be airbrushed,
voices autotuned,
words ghostwritten,
fashion provided,
and pasts smoothed over.
You’re known?
Good for you.
Address to the electric ether
or a mirror, depending
on my motivation.
Because I tell myself
it’s all about who you know.
Which means it’s all about who
you have the luck to be born of
or, just maybe,
the courage to call.
–
Notes&Sketches 