Obituary of Ordinary

This is the story of a girl

Let's say her name was Mary

She grew the fastest of us all

The boys called her Hairy Mary.

Her face was full of mean bumps

Her lips weren’t red like cherry

“Fat”,“Ugly” and “Ew” and “Dark”

Had become her only vocabulary.

She wept and wept, cursing her plight

“Ma, why must I look so scary?”

Wiping her tears, Ma consoled

“Darling, I promise it’s only temporary.”

So she prayed earnestly every night

To her beautiful Godmother Fairy

“Make me like the other girls,

Give me skin as white as dairy.”

Finally one morning, it came to her

Let’s call it an epiphany

She looked at herself in the mirror

And suddenly she wasn’t sorry.

She wore leather boots on a rainy day

She felt like a Revolutionary

She wore her anomalies like a proud badge

Because unlike them all, Mary was extraordinary.

Alliteration

Some days, we reduce life's complexities to poetic stereotypes.

Worrier

A full-time hobby

A burgeoning career

200% commitment

To being a professional Worrier.

It pays rather exceedingly

Less in cash, more in kind

The reward of endless sleepless nights

And a black hole for a mind.

I worry about sunny days

I worry the nights are too dark

I worry I’m wasting too much time

Life is clearly no walk in the park.

I worry about a loveless future

I worry I’ll get ugly and old

I worry my mojo will call it a day

Before I’m ready to fold.

I worry I haven’t done enough

I worry I’ve done too much

I worry I misplaced the manual to life

And I’m hardly concerned, as such.

But most of all, I worry

That worry is all I’ll ever do

So every time you’re feeling lonely

Don’t worry, I’ll worry about you.

• The Haiku Project • Day 20 •

• The Haiku Project • Day 20 •

Exceptional are they who silently entice

with sugar, spice and everything nice.