Carefully placed feet, carefully placed smile —
‎they carry me into the Room of the Rich,
‎this place I have been pushed to
‎by those who, like me, are not.
‎
‎You do not look like us,
‎go there, where we may view you from a distance —
‎you wear lack too well to lack,
‎you wear want too well to hunger.
‎
‎Go, so we can say that we know you well,
‎so we can use you as a trophy
‎when we make our new friends.
‎
‎I step through the door,
‎pause for effect,
‎dare any of them to question my presence.
‎I dare any of them to notice my worn clothes,
‎my old shoes.
‎
‎I turn up my nose,
‎smirk at their greetings,
‎give them my fingertips to shake —
‎as if I consider them diseased.
‎
‎And they welcome me like a sister.
‎
‎They believe what is fair cannot be starved.
‎So I wander among them, head held high,
‎my prominent collarbones
‎looking like a choice,
‎my slender body the fruit of vanity.
‎
‎I am welcomed, for hunger pangs
‎hone my wit to a scalpel,
‎and cynicism makes my company a novelty —
‎as if my ready humor were evidence of intellect,
‎as if my brain ran on any fuel
‎other than pride and willpower.
‎
‎But the poor are not dumb–
‎only starved.
‎We are merely blind and lame,
‎crippled by starvation and absence of knowledge,
‎bearing the weight of decisions made before us
‎by those not us, and not our own.
‎
‎I wonder among them–
‎a fowl with peacock feathers.
‎I perform.
‎My steps are lighter,
‎my tones more dulcet than any of their own —
‎and they are deceived.
‎
‎How unexpected, they confide,
‎to find one so like them
‎come from such a forsaken place.
‎
‎If my head throbs in my skull,
‎it is merely the strain of thinking big thoughts.
‎If my voice is softer, my laugh airier than is common —
‎why of course it is;
‎how can angels strain their lungs?
‎
‎My stomach eats itself as I speak,
‎the muscles in my midriff spasm with each breath.
‎Entire sections of conversation pass unheard —
‎I am too focused on my posture,
‎leaning on the wall just so,
‎a pose meant for nonchalance
‎rather than exhaustion.
‎
‎They laugh — they have noticed my absent mind.
‎I smile along.
‎By now, I’ve no strength even for a chuckle,
‎and I know my fleeting attention
‎is taken for the absentmindedness of beauty,
‎or genius —
‎what’s the difference?
‎
‎I am safe.
‎
‎When I can take it no longer,
‎I will excuse myself,
‎find a corner to pass out in —
‎most elegantly, of course,
‎or they might suspect
‎it is not emotion or intellect
‎but malnutrition.
‎
‎I will make a most pleasing corpse;
‎emaciation is a beauty standard.
‎No one will question why my coffin is child-sized
‎when I am twenty-one.
‎
‎But until that time,
‎I toss my head and laugh.
‎I look down on them all —
‎both the people inside
‎and the ones outside of this room.
‎
‎I laugh at their assumptions.
‎I laugh because I’m having a splendid time
‎speaking to people who do not find me strange.
‎I laugh because we’re all the same–
‎And nothing alike.

 

 

 

 

 

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