There was no elephant in the room,
only a pimple that just now sprouted
exactly one hour before the biggest party ever
and there it was in her mirror, big as her nose,
off to the right another face on her forehead,
so big she wanted to scream.
She thought to call a few of her friends,
but she knew they, too, were getting readyand she thought to ask her mom for advice,
but in the end she pulled out her strategic makeup,
studied the combinations, cover ups, colorings
and decided, no, she would wing it,
combed her hair the way she always wore it,
put on her favorite party blouse, her torn jeans,
and when she entered the party, everyone greeted her.
She danced with one boy, then another,
smiling and laughing, dancing and joking
and soon she realized she was the only one
who knew there was an elephant in the room.
No one asked about her pimple or even cared
and so the night went on and her elephant
shrunk and shrunk until it was invisible.
| Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
You have captured the teenage years so well here. I remember a dance and I wore my new red boots everybody was calling "Desert Boots". I could have sworn they glowed in the dark! Nobody cared. No elephant, so well put
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