For Class

Eleanor

Silent and perfect, we are hair in water.
Floating just below the surface,
Just below existence,
Everything is perfectly parted.
Stranded in familiar follicles.
Mirroring water, your face forms lines of beauty,
Paralleled lips and eyes and brows.
There is something eerie about your presence,
Riveting, something worthy of chills.
Without your eyes, you pull us into your water.
Without “the windows to your soul”, we see you in your existence.
Natural and complete, all we need is essence.
Contemplative and content, all we are is skin.
Where are we supposed to look when you close your eyes?
We see you as everything.
We see everything in you, as whole.
We see it all together, and that makes you perfect.
You are exposed and you don’t mind
Because it gives you depth.
If I look at you long enough,
You become stronger in your image.
Your hair blacker, skin paler, face calmer,
Evoking echoes and a love I’ve never seen.
I can’t tell if you’re standing,
But it’s all the same anyway,
So we might as well all just float.




Framed and Faceless Flag

We drag flags like combs,
Across the dirty windowsills of our faces,
Covered in hair resembling stars and stripes.
We cannot see through the glass
Because of the cloth we’ve blinded ourselves with.
There are frills on our blouses
And buttons on our pea-coats,
But still we look demeaning.
Still we keep our faces dark and shielded.
We are protected by your symbol of freedom and justice,
But have never noticed that the bricks of our buildings melt together.
Tomorrow, it might change direction and your
Shades might as well be drawn.
So keep looking out, even though
All you don’t understand is me with intentions of finding you.
Be sure to stay separate from those ominous stripes,
Waving to your children.
Be sure to wash those stars out of our eyes,
That’s what eyelashes are for,
Catching dust, catching stars, catching dreams and lies that wave to our children.
The reds of your lips aren’t as romantic as they’d like.
The whites of your eyes aren’t as pure as they’d like.
The blues of your veins aren’t as patriotic as they’d like.
But if you remain blinded and disgruntled, they’ll let it slide this time.
You would never dream of cracking that window,
The panes are too perfectly still,
The pains are too perfectly bearable.
And you are merely watching us down below,
Us exalting in the flagless freedom, fictionless,
But you beg to differ.
So remain where you are, dappled in stripes,
Stifled in stars,
And I’ll make sure your eyelashes do their job.