KarMel Scholarship 2007

 

 “Artificial”

By Amber-Marie Bengoc

 

 

Desciption of Submission: A poem contrasting the narrator (a tomboyish sort of lesbian) to the pretty "straight" girl. We all hide. Examining the layers each hide behind.

 

 

 

Artificial skin,

Artificial eyes,

Sometimes artificial claws.

 

I am a creature of falsehood.

 

Black wildness shorn and restrained

Though as the day wears on

Small strands escape - Her

Flowing silk stays smooth

Be it free or tamed.

 

And while real fleshy orbs

Look either above or behind

Metal and glass

They cannot meet hers

Even when they hide too

Behind the glass.

My two deadened coal lumps

Cannot meet twin onyx cabochon.

 

Lips, a tight line hiding off-white fangs

A closed mouth smile - Sharp

Contrast to her gleaming pristine

Presidential Smile.

The plain face a careless eye mistakes for a pretty boy's

Abomination beside her practical applied Beauty.

 

Her coat and mine are both black.

Her carrying maturing elegance

Mine marking me more the knave

Hers coving feminine garments

Mine accenting a male t-shirt.

All of this covering all of us

As we consciously keep our eyes on our middles

Willing them not to grow.

 

There are my manly cargo pants

And her short skirt

Hiding my scarred once-powerful legs,

Revealing her shapely ones.

 

I stomp or silently shuffle

In artificial hooves of rounded functionality.

She struts or smoothly slides

With feet framed in pointed sexuality

 

Artificial skin and Artificial senses

Her of me

Me of her

Her of her

Me of her

As we hide in our artificial selves

 

No one is surprised when I find a pretty face

And play the rogue as I

smirk and Wink

Touch and flirt.

And everyone expects a smile on her pretty face

As she plays social, But she

Touches and smirks.

In response I flirt and wink.

 

Artificial fun in our artificial flavors.

 

She ignores reality.

I admit to it.

Yet as the distance grows all too rea

My false affection passes from me

But her false smile and mirrored eyes remain.

Like the artificial skins we hide within.

 

 

Back