Make/Over

I am such a lying bitch,
Telling big, fat ones
Through my perfectly capped teeth
As I jut out my medico-boobs
And interrupt my programming
To thank my dentist,
My doctors, my makeup artist
And that designer who
Has pushed and pulled me
Like a turkey for the oven.

I am trussed up
So I cannot reach
Forward or backward.
All I want is to stop time.
Is that really so bad?

I have them resurface
My skin to erase the sun's marks,
Make invisible the tracks of years
As if that would keep time from passing.
I have them reshape
My body to plump me up here,
Thin me out there,
So I can forget all the lessons,
Painful and joyful, in botox and bleaching
That will make of me a naif once more.

I coat my nails in layers of hues
And fancy, uptown filigrees
To forget the work of my hands,
Flatten the curls of my hair
And dye red the white
Shooting through the dark
Strands that scream "NATIVE"
When I would be
Sleek and foreign like a pinup girl
On a GI barracks wall.

Then I look out my window
And close my eyes.
I am not alone in this need
To hold on to the moment
I feel my own perfection
In conquest of who I truly am.
I make myself blind
To the hunger for oblivion
That eats up my landmarks,
Erases that which I knew as a kid,
That which my ancestors knew.

Because when I sunder my history,
I am eternally young and, in my youth,
Unmindful so there is nothing left
To forget.

I cannot cherish myself
As is where is.
Laugh if you want,
But amnesia is my opiate,
The medicine for all that ails me.

I feel no pain
When I see no reminder.

So, doc, let's talk about my lips
And how many microns more
It takes to erase another kiss,
Another word, another language.

Take me. Remake me.
In the image of this Calamity
Waiting in my wings.

Let me tell the lie
Until we all believe
The truth was hidden
Too well to be.

Call me ugly.
That's just another word
For my kind of beauty.