We Freaks, Breathe

By Lindsey Woodbury

We Freaks

“Back in Your Love” Image © Katie Zilcosky (https://www.flickr.com/photos/katiezil03/10907450865/)

We freaks:
We screaming peacemakers,
We perfectly imperfect perfectionists
We hopelessly lost finders of hope
Are almost
(But not quite totally)*
….out of our minds.

We freaks:
We silent, loquacious poets,
We boundary-less music makers,
We beautiful uglies and broken creators,
Are almost
(But not quite totally)
…only human.

We freaks:
We lonely table sitters,
We colorless colorful rebels,
We history makers,
(Behind our makeup and our masks)
Are almost
(But not quite totally)
…just like you

*Variations on a quote from Douglas Adam’s “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

Breathe

Breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Smile.
Force a laugh.
Hide the scars
Put on the mask.

Step into the skin
Of who you’re not.
Of who you wish you were.
Of who you will never be.

And step out into the world.
Be the perfect little plastic
That everybody knows you to be.

Because it’s better to be plastic
And feel nothing at all.
Than it is to be glass
And shatter so easily.
And it’s easier to survive
A pseudo-something
Than it is to survive
Yourself.

Lindsey Woodbury is 15 years old and has grown up on a farm in Northwestern Oklahoma. Although she is a farmer, she does not hold much of a passion for agriculture. Rather, she is unlike many people in her area and has a passion for the fine arts. Her poetry in YARN is her first published work.