The Book of Poetry in the Back of My Cabinet

Funny Lookin'

A lot of the time
When people look at me,
They laugh.

Not because
They're making fun of me, 
but my looks are,
As some say,
Unusual.

Or, as my older sister says,
Funny Lookin'.

Initially, when I was 
First made aware of this,
I'd spend twenty
Maybe thirty minutes 
In the mirror
Looking for deformation,
the added element that makes me
different from everyone else.

What makes me funny lookin'?

Is it because my teeth on top
are all spaced out,
grown apart
like friends who move away from each other
yet still promise to stay in touch?

Because all my bottom teeth
looked forced together,
As if they were 
strangers taking a family photo?

Is it because my nose is small
yet my nostrils are so wide
as if they wish to detour all attention to them?

Is it my hair?
My eyebrows?
My mouth?
My complexion?
My ears?
Is it my glasses
Or my neck?
My sideburns?
My faint jawline?
My chubby cheeks?
My round chin?

I've asked at every part of the body
I know, and yet,
the answer is always,
"No, not that. Something else."

What?
What makes me so 
Funny lookin'?

Is it something that I've tried to hide?

Can they see them?

Did they notice the
The
The twelve deep scars
On my right arm?
If so, how is it funny?

Can they see the fifteen fork-burns
on my upper thighs?

If so, how is it funny?

Or maybe, maybe its something you can't see.

Maybe other people can see
the unseeable.
The thoughts, the questions, the wonder, the hope,
The lack of hope.
The lack of love.
The lack of light.
The lack of knowing, 
Knowing if I'll live to be 25,
If I'll live to get my driver's license,
To see an R rated movie without an adult,
To join the Navy
To get married.

The lack of knowing if I'll ever meet someone
who would provide me the love I lack for myself 
thus giving me hope.
Hope that will fuel my search for light 
At the end of the dark tunnel
That is my life, my past.

And once I find that light,
if there is light,
if there is hope,
if there is or will ever be 
That long-lasting emotional attraction

Called love,
I'll use it.

I'll use it to light other people's tunnels.
Darker tunnels (there are tunnels darker than my own).

I'll show people that there is yet a hope for them.
That there is someway
To make it through this unusual world
We all share
Even if we're funny lookin'.