Gold

I like to think of it
as something you'd prefer to enjoy-
opposed to society, opposed by society.
Its something maybe a bit eccentric,
something just beyond what might be ordinary,
you, I, we are drawn to it rather mysteriously.

We can't quit what makes us
feel the most alive.
If we do, then we may as well be dead.

Faith.
Drugs.
Sex.
Exercise.
Sleep.

We are the oddities, some call us the circus freaks.
We exist ensnared- trapped by what we love,
quite intentionally.
We will circle and turn,
balance on high wires,
tumble and run,
balancing acts focused on what keeps us warm-
we do what we must to keep ourselves from harm.

The harm is not having you-
the harm is being made unwhole.
The harm is living in this world with what we did not choose-
living with what we can't control.

Dead space,
iron tastes,
human waste,
and everything keeps moving
with such never-ending haste.

So you, I, we pause
to actually take cliched advice
take moments of vice
to smell the roses
to take a drag or two,
steal a kiss from you,
closing our eyes and we pray
anything to experience what calms our days.

Wonderful-
but never quite accepted.
We know we'll always be looked at funny,
but we smile back because we know what they don't-
we know, we have joy
and we know how to make it stick around us,
girls and boys!

I am weird, I am odd, I am
that one-of-a-kind bearded lady
and I will leave you wondering
if perhaps I am the one who's right- just maybe,
why I am the way that I am.

Why is her smile so contagious?
Why is his smell such a sweet fragrance?
Why are their steps, and not mine, so fortuitous?

Keep wondering,
while those of us who know,
keep on living-
under the radars,
under those bridges,
and under the cover of night, we come alive
in broad daylight- confident.

Gold.