Nothing says “quirky” like running around with a lampshade crown.
In October, I participated in a wonderful poetry celebration known as OctPoWriMo. One of our early prompts was to write a poem inspired by the word “eccentric.” The creative process remains a mysterious one to me (and probably always will), but through whatever machinations of imagination and muse, “The Dangerous Weird” is the poem that emerged.
I wrote it thinking of all the wonderful people I know in my life who have weathered the storm of being seen as different, odd, less-than-normal. It’s a celebration of that amazing, dangerous weird within all of us, something I think that my online community of creative folk can appreciate.
This community is one that inspires me and encourages me towards all sorts of mischief, like rambling about my love of Hugh Jackman and sloths, or dancing around on tabletops with a lampshade on my head (as seen at the last #myWANA Twitter party). The chance to be fully myself, knowing that I’ll be accepted, is an incredibly rare one, and one for which I am truly grateful.
So this one’s for you, gang. Enjoy!
“The Dangerous Weird”
i am eccentric
you
say
because color tastes of
sound
because history is
my dwelling place
i was a child with a calligraphy pen
my mother's borrowed
cameos
a collection of teapots
a girl enchanted
by amulets
faerie
unicorns
imagined elven revelries
worlds that exist only in my head
acne-cursed chubby sally-jesse-raphael-bespectacled awkward child
too smart
too ambitious
teased and tormented for the dangerous
weird
(because idiot child bullies can't pronounce "eccentric"
and don't trust the abnormal)
but i am a forward-thinking girl
despite the obsession with dusty antiques
adulthood was my ticket to survival
and i
waited
honed and polished my weird
shined it up like the best silver serving set
to put on display for
rare souls
that understood
(password: "kindred spirit")
today i find the peculiar ones
those
grownup off-beat children
catch them running through the rye
together we make a mountain of
weird
a paradise of
strange
to us, the song of color
the taste of word
is to be savored
time is neither linear nor measurable
and the world
is
our playground
eccentrics one and all
