State of Mind

Beauty (Woman)

I wanted to write a poem.
I wanted to write a poem because it's something I do not do.
I do not stitch together pretty words to create pretty sentences to make others feel pretty.
I do not know how to capture the beauty of the world as if it's a woman into a few lines.
I do not entice your interest with my words because you think they drip from my lips like honey.
I do not do those things.

I wanted to write a poem.
I wanted to write a poem because it is something I do not do.
I do not try to woe you with fragranced phrases as if the scent of my perfumed words would enthrall you.
I do not try to hypnotize you with my intricately woven webs of beautiful things to bring you close to me.
I do not strategically handpick my words like the peaches on the trees in hopes of you feasting on them.
I do not do those things.

I wanted to write a poem.
I wanted to write a poem because it is something that scares me.
It scares me because it is beauty.
Beauty scares me.
Beauty scares me because I am not that.
I am not beauty.

I am not the beautiful blonde with the beautiful blue eyes and beautiful ivory skin.
I am not the woman with the beautiful laugh and smile.
When I smile, I cover it with my hands in hopes no one saw.
Because who would want to see?
Not me...not I.
So, why would anyone else?

For centuries women have been compared to nature.
Our breasts have been compared to mountains and rolling hills of green.
Our hips have been referred to as the baskets that carry new life.
Our curves have been called roads that twist and turn and that are taken slow or fast.
Though maybe too slow or too fast at times.

Our skin has been described as soft like the clouds rolling through the sky.
Our eyes compared to the sun and how the light dances in them.
They have called our lips pink like roses in the summer, the gentle bow in them so innocently seductive.
We have been labeled as nurturing because our bodies resemble nature.
That beauty is truly beautiful.
But my beauty is not that beauty.

Our smiles might remind you of sunny days, but we are more than sunshine and rainbows.
When crossed, our eyes bear the same rage that a barreling storm wears.
Our feet shake the earth with fierce power and our battle cries resemble thunder.
We are the thunder.
We are the storm.
We are the earthquake that rattles and trembles your world as we shake your foundation.

This beauty of fierce fire that bellows in the night.
This beauty of howling winds that shrieks through valleys.
This beauty of rampant tsunamis that disrupt the ocean.
That beauty -that raw and unadulterated and unapologetic beauty.
That beauty is the beauty I choose to call my own.

I am not soft; I am rough.
I am not just mountains and roses, or roads took too slowly.
I am not like nature; I am nature.
If God made man from dirt, then I am the soil that flowers grow from.

I am woman.
Not just a woman.
Woman.
I am woman.

I wanted to write a poem.
I wanted to write a poem because it's something I do not do.
I do not stitch together pretty words to create pretty sentences to make others feel pretty.
I do not know how to capture the beauty of the world as if it's a woman into a few lines.
I do not entice your interest with my words because you think they drip from my lips like honey.
I do not do those things.

Because I am those things.

© 2018 K.N. Herzner