Autobiography(A Reply to Ferlinghetti)

I am leading a quiet life
In a high chair the size of heaven every day
Licking mashed potatoes
Off a silver Mickey Mouse bowl
And smiling at the flecks and whorls of white
Stuck in the crevices between my stubby fingers.

I am leading a quiet life
In an abused ugly school desk.
I am an American.
I was an American girl.
I read Brother Grimm's fairy tale collections
And became a fairy princess
Trapped in a 2-story tower of bricks and chalk.
I thought I was Rapunzel
Swooning and dreaming only of escape
And my one true love
While my teacher was a one-eyed witch
That hopped about on one foot
Screaming, "Rumplestiltskin! Rumplestiltskin!"
And forced me to do math problems.
I had a fairy wand made of deliriously weak cardboard
And a plastic tiara that glowed like the sun
Underneath the chandelier lights of my imaginary ballroom.
I woke up at 8 O'clock every morning
To capture butterflies with a cool elliptic net
And tell them the tragic story of my cruel mother
And very ugly baby sister.
I still can feel the beat of their fragile wings
Against my palms, entrapped within the sanctuary of my steeple.
I had a happy childhood.
I saw the inauguration parade for Carter.
I looked homeward
And saw no angel
Only pockets of disorganized flowers
And a grubby slash of weeds.
I almost stole a trapped mermaid
From Toys R' Us when I was too young to know better
But my mother stopped me when she heard
The crinkle of plastic in my pocket.
I wore a shirt and short set decorated with peaches the day
I kissed a boy behind a trashcan in his garage.
I kicked my mother in a hotel room in London
And screamed that the world was unfair.
I have seen the frosty painted smiles of girls
Holding bunny fingers behind each other's blond heads and
laughing.
I have seen my father's company picnics
Full of people I don't know that ask me questions
And exclaim that I have grown feet inches miles.
Chocolate brownies and barbeque ribs
Snatched and eaten by hairy thick fingers and dry mouths.
I am reading the future on the pink nail polish
On my toenails.
They tell me that cracks and crevices might show up tomorrow
With a forty percent chance of soap-smelling rain.
I have seen my sister parade in front of her mirror
Holding her sandy strands of hair away from her slim face
Worried that she'll look bad the next day.
I have not been out to a park
In a long time
Nor to a bakery
But I still keep thinking
Of going.
I have seen small puffy children parade
When it was snowing
Glad the streets were white enough to prevent public
transportation.
I have eaten salty peanuts in ballparks.
I have heard the cry of a woman
Who felt she deserved three extra cents for her time on earth
And the whimper of a homeless man at the sight of food.
I like it here
And I won't go back
Where I came from.
I too have written poems poems poems.
I have walked alongside unknown persons.
I have been in Asia
With an anthropologist on the Discovery Channel.
I was in India
When A Thousand and One Arabian Nights was written.
I have been in the Manger
With straw in my hair and a wrinkly little body
Pressed up against my chest.
I have seen the Eternal Distributor
From the outside of a Hallmark store
In Memphis
And a kind bum with tender blue eyes
Outside a drugstore in the middle of January
Pleading for people to hear his song on the radio.
I have heard the sound of revelry
By night.
I have wandered lonely
As a throng of rubberneckers around a car accident.

I am leading a quiet life
Outside a high chair the size of heaven every day
Watching the old and young walk past
In pure white Keds or blood red heels.
I once started out to walk around the world
But ended up in the middle of nowhere
With an empty jar of peanut butter
Drenched to the bone and wishing for my mother.
That journey was too much for me.
I have engaged in silence
Manipulation and cunning.
I flew too close to the candle
And caught my wings on fire
Because there was no steeple to protect me anymore.
I am looking for a reason
In the juniper candles I have lit around my bed
But I accidentally tip over one and scorch parts of my carpet.
I cover the spots with my bed and try to pretend they do not
exist.
I am looking for a frog that has trapped itself
Between a vacuum cleaner and a cardboard box
But every time I try to direct it one way
It jumps the other.
I forget about it
And find it later flat as a chocolate chip pancake in the street.
Young women should be adventurers
Going wherever their hearts take them.
But Mother never prepared me for the real world.
Home sick
Womb sick
I return
I have traveled.

I have seen Las Vegas
With neon lights the size of small galaxies.
I have seen floating Thanksgiving turkeys
Blinded by smog.
I have heard my father cry
While my body was pressed against the stair banister.
I have heard children stumble
And crack and cry.
I have slept through a hurricane
And woken up the next morning
Surprised that the sun still shone.
I have heard a mockingbird
Mock.
I have worn a dress
And not been afraid of the trailing hem.
I have dwelt in rooms with locked doors
And hidden in corners with a blanket over my head.
What futility what unhappiness what strife!
What men and women with unseeing eyes
And jeweled fingers lost among the
Endless cycle of supply and demand!
I have seen the statues of heroes
Adored only for the artistic patterns
Of gifts left by inferior pigeons.
Kundera dancing at a metro station
His skirts held high above his head
And a vulgar man beside him clapping.
Columbus in the middle of sea
Pressing his temples with feverish unhappiness
Basing all of his hope on living on the flight of a single
seagull.
Lincoln in his stony chair
Solitarily baring the grief of American sorrow
On his own Herculean shoulders.
I know that Columbus did not invent the future
But only provided a much needed catalyst.
I have heard a hundred broken writers
Trapped in their own cycle of fear and rejection.
They should all be freed
But I know they'd be even less happy.
It is long since I could claim innocence.

I am leading a quiet life
In an empty shattered house every day
Reading a constitution I bought at the Smithsonian two years ago
That is now pierced by a single pin
Attached to the thread of my blood.
I have read American Girl
From cover to cover
And noted the close identification
Between beautiful parental relationships
And complete and utter happiness.
I read the Want Ads daily
Looking for the lost family
That is searching for me
Because they accidentally left me in a grocery store
Twelve years ago.
I hear America singing
But it sounds just like Cyndi Lauper
And America seems to have lost its message
Two hundred years back.
My fourth grade teacher could never tell
My soul wears shiny black tap shoes.
I read a Goosebumps book every day
Enthralled with the idea of horror being an escape.
I see where the pond I once caught frogs in
When I was a delicate tom-boy
Has been drained to house another American family.
I see they're making ribs
While the good All-American father
Hugs his wife close and talks of his dream for the future.
I see another war is coming
But I'm too afraid to fight in it.
Mother never prepared me for combat boots and camo.
I have read the writing
On the stalls in the girl's bathroom
And I now know phone numbers and addresses
Of beauties that must have left them here
For me to find.
I helped the sun go down.
I marched up to high school on the first day
Blowing air in and out of my lungs
As the big kids drove by in Hummers and BMWs.
They never knew I threw up my breakfast
In a bush beside the door.
I see a similarity
Between love and complication.
Love loves complication
And complication cannot live without love.
I have walked down alleys
Too dangerous for anyone
And come out on the other side smiling.
I have seen a hundred ice cream cones
Consumed by little girls with pigtails
In Dairy Queens all around the country.
Rembrandt never painted thin women
But they're there
Trapped within a carcass of flesh and bones
Aching for anything more than just a saltine cracker.
I have heard garbagemen sing.
I have ridden highways
And read billboards promising beauty
But only giving me a telephone number.
I have seen them.
I am the woman.
I was there.
I suffered
Whenever I thought it proper.
I am an American.
I have a passport.
I did not suffer in public
Or so I tell myself.
And I'm too young to die.
I am a self-made woman.
And I have plans for the future
That would make my mother shake in her boots.
I am in line for a new license plate
And the woman beside me smells
Like smoke and death.
I smile at her and she smiles back.
Her mouth is as vacant as her eyes.
I am afraid to check the obituaries
And see her face there.
I may be moving on
To Ohio.
I am only temporarily
A civilian trapped in a civilian prison.
I am a good person
Especially at night with the sheets tucked up to my chin.
I am an open book
To anyone that isn't afraid to look me in the eyes.
I am a complete mystery
To those that only touch my hands and pass.

I am leading a quiet life
In a four hundred and fifty square foot coffin every day
Contemplating the intricacies of the spackle on the ceiling.
I am a part
Of the human race's long walk to a conclusion.
I have wandered in various neighborhoods
Wishing they were my own because of the pretty grass
And white picket fences.
I have written wildly long journal entries
Cowering in front of a notepad
Afraid my worst nightmare might come in at any second.
I am the woman.
I was there.
I suffered
When there was pain.
I have sat in rocking chairs that made me feel like a queen
And danced in front of my mirror naked.
I am a moonstone dropped from the heavens.
I am a hollowed out light bulb
Where poets fade in and out of existence behind veils of smoke.
I invented time travel
After watching an ant disappear out of this reality
And appear on the alternate reality of my knee.
I am an ice skating rink in the middle of a desert.
I am the color red
Splashed like spilled cranberry juice beside the sun.
I am a light bulb of poetry.
I am a destroyer
Of naivety and comfort.
I have dreamt
That a bird ate my neck
And was afraid of my feet.
When my neck was gone
My feet came and finished the rest.
For I am a still
Of poetry.
I am a bank of precious goods
That twinkle like gold
But smell of warm summer nights
And rose perfume.
I am a circus performer
Left behind to fall into a black hole
And come out on the other side
Wearing a toupee and false teeth.
I see a similarity
Between the ignorant
And myself.
I have heard the sound of rain falling
On a tin roof.
I have seen boys on boardwalks
Lean forward for a kiss
And come back with spider webs.
I understand their confusion
But I don't revel in it.
I am a gatherer of priceless images.
I have seen how kisses
Cause love and complication.
I have risked security
For the hope of something greater.
I have seen the Virgin
Frozen behind glass
And worried over by men who want to perform an autopsy
To see when she was born.
I have seen metal elephants hold their trunks above their heads
And say, "Don't run! Don't jump! Be safe!"
I have seen statues of beautiful women
Pushed aside because their navels stuck out like cinnamon rolls.
I have heard a siren sing
In a small booth outside the Hard Rock Caf?.
She hugged a sax to her
And caused the death of me.
I have seen a scared little boy dance the waltz
And never step on his partner's feet.
He was prim and proper
Just like his daddy.
I have seen beautiful girls smile because their eyeliner was
dripping
And look away frightened because they saw how deathly they looked
Reflected in my eyes.
No one spoke
But her hair was done up with flowers
And she wished she was innocent again.

I am leading a quiet life
In a white room decorated with monuments to someone else's life every
day
Watching the glow of pointless success
And I have read somewhere
The question and answer to life
Yet I can't remember the title of the book of jokes.
But I am the woman
And I'll be there.
And I may cause someone to love me in his sleep
But I hope he knows I never did it on purpose.
And I may make something beautiful
But I hope the world won't be frightened by it.
And I may write my own epitaph
And someone may remark that it's just too long
But I won't be mind
Because my soul wears shiny black tap shoes
And Immortality never refuses a dance.