an ode to emotion...

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 honest
open, 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

for nothing...

I loaned light
an attitude that
light loaned back
to me

I loaned sky
an altitude for
soaring high
to see

I loaned grief
a vessel which
for awhile
it sailed

I loaned dark
a cover that
it could remain
veiled

I loaned time
an envelope to
help contain its
weight

I loaned faith
ample room to
contemplate
its freight

I loaned love
my everything that
it gifted back
for free

I loaned sight
my open eyes for
bending light
to see

I loaned life
my willingness to
drive it here
and there

and contemplate
my gratefulness
for everything
I share



words and image by lucy meskill