I'm about to see you
and you're ugly
but I don't mind
because I am ugly too
the best thing is that
you are really real
and that am really real
and we can ring our real
together—keeping chime—
like clear and darkling bells
because every pretty
is its own brand of ugly
that denies the honest truth
—like the most comely shirt
in the whole wide world
that goes sour in the drawer
remaining static and unworn
because we are afraid
that its beauty will not last—
and honest ugly can be
splendid in its own honestopen, gleaming way
—like the torn and tattered
edges of a really fine
piece of handmade lace
more beautiful as it
—slowly threadbare—
unravels deft secrets
about its knotting over time—
every real thing has a beauty
that fake pretty never owns
and the border towns of honest
shelter hordes of awkward
blessed ugly aspects that
enjoin to form a rampart
around fortresses of truth—which
are often gentle ugly places—
where no honesty is shunned
Lucy Meskill
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