Cookie Cutter People

I’m a star-shaped building block
but you try to force me
through the triangular hole
in your shape-sorter.
You give me tablets
to knock off my pointy bits,
the voices-in-my-head bits,
to make me ordinary.
So I revel in talking about
my constipated side-effects
in polite company
- like a madwoman.
I wear insanity like a cloak
to hide the me I don’t want seen,
the do-I-look-fat-in-this banality
that mortifies me, but you welcome
because it shows I’ve Taken My Meds.
Be good, girl, swallow your pride,
knock off those pesky edges
so we can squeeze you
into your pigeonhole.
You are busy gluing feathers to me -
you don’t hear my pleas,
I don’t want to be a normal bird,
I quite like being batty.
The voice in my head laughs
because you have a weird-shaped nose.
Maybe you should have surgery
to make it look more like mine?
© Clare Hill 2006