{"id":303,"date":"2023-02-21T18:31:09","date_gmt":"2023-02-21T18:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caressingthelanguage.com\/?p=349"},"modified":"2023-02-21T18:31:09","modified_gmt":"2023-02-21T18:31:09","slug":"my-brilliant-campaign-a-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/katherinebillingspalmer.com\/writing\/my-brilliant-campaign-a-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"My Brilliant Campaign \u2013 A poem"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

From Nadia Colburn\u2019s 31+ Day Meditation and Writing Course, Day 21: Write about some way you have felt different or you feel different and how that can be seen as a strength, perhaps something you didn’t see before as a strength.<\/p>\n

MY BRILLIANT CAMPAIGN<\/p>\n

When I was young, I wasn\u2019t cool or cute or sought after.
\nI wasn\u2019t thin or dimpled or flirty
\nor the girl every boy wanted to date.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t sing or play an instrument or draw or paint or master a sport. In fact,
\nI had no hidden talent,
\nUnless you count the ability to read books
\nfor hours on end and imagine being swallowed up inside them.<\/p>\n

I was the brainy chubby girl with the awful short-haired perm
\nand the knee-length plaid jumper
\nfighting zits and anxiety
\nand loneliness
\nhidden so well behind a smile in a junior high filled with<\/p>\n

Cool Chicks whose mothers taught them
\nhow to put on makeup
\nThey followed beauty tips from Cosmo,
\nrolled their long blond hair on orange juice cans,
\nAnd wore mini-skirts above shapely legs
\nWhile mine went unshaven.<\/p>\n

My brilliant campaign to change my image,
\nTo fit a square peg into a round world
\nincluded losing myself
\nand my despised idiosyncrasies
\nwithin a myriad of drugs and pints of alcohol.<\/p>\n

By high school, I was the stoned out girl with
\nthe long brown hair and torn hip-hugger bell-bottom jeans,
\nshod in men\u2019s laced-up work boots,
\nbrains successfully hidden under a large floppy hat
\nskipping school in a field all day
\nand kissing boys who didn\u2019t love me.<\/p>\n

I had blurred my peculiarities and quieted my confusion
\nin a fog of pot smoke and hallucinogens. I was saturated in avoidance.<\/p>\n

I finally solved the problem of
\ntests and classrooms, anxiety and peer groups,
\npeople asking about future plans I had no courage to achieve
\nby dropping out two weeks before I turned sixteen.<\/p>\n

To face a world outside school that was just as scary.<\/p>\n

That was 50 years ago. I want to go back and hug that girl
\nfold her in my wrinkled arms and tell her
\nto embrace her differences
\nto read her books
\nto put down the joint and
\npick up a pen.<\/p>\n

To discover her own voice.<\/p>\n

I want to look into her confused and vacant eyes
\nand convince her that someday
\neverything will be alright.<\/p>\n

That in a few short years,
\nshe\u2019ll have a child to pour her love into,
\nearn an English degree,
\nmeet a man who adores curvy brunette eggheads,
\nfind a satisfying writing career.<\/p>\n

And when her son has been raised,
\nher husband has died,
\nand she has retired,
\nshe\u2019ll be 66 and alone again.<\/p>\n

But not lonely this time.<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll still be immersed in books
\nBut now, pen in hand, she has her own story to tell
\nHaving eventually discovered that
\nher idiosyncrasies
\nare simply what makes her unique.<\/p>\n

I long to tell that girl all these things,
\nAnd save her some pain
\nBut without the pain, she\u2019ll never become
\nthe woman she\u2019s meant to be.<\/p>\n

\"Share\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Nadia Colburn\u2019s 31+ Day Meditation and Writing Course, Day 21: Write about some way you have felt different or you feel different and how that can be seen as a strength, perhaps something you didn\u2019t see before as a strength. 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