Highways and Byways: In a Perfect World

By Maik Strosahl




Recently I saw a beautiful girl with the skin condition Vitiligo. From the way she held herself, you could tell she did not see that beauty through her own eyes.

    Vitiligo occurs when pigment-producing cells die or stop functioning, creating blotchy patterns in one’s skin.

    I thought of how heartless some people can be when someone looks different. Our society puts such emphasis on physical beauty and anything that makes one deviate from what is held up as perfection can make one an outcast.
    For me it brought to mind the awkward flight of the butterfly, stumbling and bumbling through the air while the “perfect” world flies straight through, yet there is tremendous beauty in all of our individual flights and most of it is more than skin deep.

In a Perfect World

This path,
a struggle against gravity,
a fight for flight
into a southwestern breeze
with these awkward wings.

I will not yield,
will not bow to the perfect,
bronze bodies with pouty lips,
all curves flowing easily
through sharp intersections.

Eyes wide,
lunging into a dive,
then rising back aflutter,
I am beauty banished
to the isle of Vitiligo,

Where the children point
and ask “What is wrong with her?”
while I stutter away,
shift my eyes to the blue sky,
never allowing the rain to fall.

I will not hide.
I will not return
to the chrysalis.

Instead I keep moving ahead
in this stumble glide,
taking a butterfly’s journey
through a city of angles.

Copyright © 2022 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there.