I Am Vertical

But I would rather be horizontal. I am not a tree with my root in the soil Sucking up minerals and motherly love So that each March I may gleam into leaf, Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted, Unknowing I must soon unpetal. Compared with me, a tree is immortal And a flower-head not tall, but more startling, And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring. Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars, The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors. I walk among them, but none of them are noticing. Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping I must most perfectly resemble them-- Thoughts gone dim. It is more natural to me, lying down. Then the sky and I are in open conversation, And I shall be useful when I lie down finally: Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

-Sylvia Plath

If You're Not Pretty, You're Nothing, Darling.

If the starlight doesn’t dazzle your suitors,

You’ve got no suitors left to dazzle.

If the sun doesn’t shine on your slender face,

They’ll be no sunshine in your brown eyes.

If you don’t carry the grace of those before you,

Then you needn’t worry about these attentions,

If burden is too heavy, lay it down here on the floor,

If your spirit is dying of inattention, nobody cares.

Men won’t sympathise with ugly women,

You need aesthetics to deliver the human connection.

Women feel naught but pity for an ugly man,

Humorous, but far-reaching ; a joke upon himself.

You needn’t be pretty, then you needn’t be lustful,

You needn’t carry nor hopes nor dreams,

Those are meant for the camera friendly faces,

This is the only way to ignore an entire population.

It is not that it is bitter, to be treated as misfitting,

It is only a matter of preference, of subconscious choice.

How biology has made us to prefer that which we need,

However manipulated that thought; synthetic evolution.

Don’t be absurd, the case isn’t that you’re devoid of skill,

It’s just that someone else can execute it with more appeal,

Why bother with the unpleasant notion of unpleasantry,

When you can cool your eyes with beauty so innate?

If you’re not pretty, you’re nothing darling.

You’re but coal in the dirt, among diamonds & dust.

And burn as you might, bright as you could,

The diamond will only shine brighter by your light.