Beautiful Nothing [March 2007]

there is
nothing
beautiful
of me

dead-eyed dull-mind
flesh lumping beneath
cloth meant to
hide and
not quite failing
but I know
each ancient scar and
doughy ring of
fat that lurks
of failure
and
inability to
motivate to
control to
conquer this
body-sickness and all its
highs
lows
sugar-spikes carb-crashes
meat-needs
crippled knees just excuses
for a crippled couch-potato will

nothing
beautiful
in me

bird within
feathers plucked
bare
ripped to white
pins pricking out
of brown and
bird-dust
hunched
wings torn
filth
phoenix is a joke
pale ashen gray
featherfalling fading
into coal and
limp, ragged, molt
into chicken-ugly
pigeon-sick
into anything
except

beautiful