LiveJournal Idol Season 9 Week 28: The Copernican Principle

[eeyore_grrl]

                                         the Copernican Principle

you couldn’t pay me to be in middle school again
that time when every awkward moment   
                        every lisped word
     was the center of surgical precision and ridicule
     when the mean girls didn’t like me
     but neither did my friends
             and that was the one that bit

so young
                i was a fixed point
                        with satellite planets mocking my every thing
                the sun and moon unable to break their orbits to save me

      the sun rises and sets
               a spotlight
      the moon whispers words of comfort
               as she fades
                              (night by night)

i struggle through math
                   attempting to ignore “bitch” written on my books
                        whispered repeatedly so teachers’ couldn’t hear
                        whispered to worm its way
                                                                      to my molten
                                                                            core

i wish i knew then 
          that the sun and planets do not revolve around the earth
                                                                          around me
                         that aristotle was wrong

copernicus came in and corrected him
we are heliocentric
          the earth’s gravitational pull
                     is not mine to play with
                     is not mine to understand
          but i still try
                     as i rotate and orbit around the sun

the other planets
	(in their own fixed orbits)
                             are not my concern

those girls are no longer near me
	and their hurt is finally fading
i’ve put myself back together
            since those long ago 8th grade days
i’ve fixed my lisp with a tongue piercing
       and i’m surrounded by friends that care

i am no longer aristotle’s earth

     i am the sun

or watch me read it here:

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Comments

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Very nice use of the prompt, and I'm sorry you went through that. :(

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

The last line is so powerful.."I am the Sun"..I liked what you did with the prompt. Nice work!

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I liked the way you find yourself as "sun".

[i-17bingo.livejournal.com]

That last line was brilliant and powerful.

Even when I wasn't bullied, the experience had left me so self-conscious that I felt everybody staring all through college. And thus I moved to New York.

I am proud to say that, of all the creative theater/musician/artists I knew from that tiny college town to the Big Apple, I was the only one who lasted, because I craved the anonymity the city provided, whereas the lack of attention broke them. For a time, I preferred to be Neptune--beautiful, but only there if you're looking.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this, I think it's one of my favorite pieces of yours.

I used to lisp too, when I was younger. I had speech therapy up until about third grade. *Hugs*

[adoptedwriter.livejournal.com]

Bravo! Junior high sucks. You've captured that angst well here. So glad to be past those days.
Frienemies! Boo!
AW

[medleymisty.livejournal.com]

*hugs you really a lot*

[hosticle-fifer.livejournal.com]

It takes a long time, doesn't it? I was bullied incessantly through middle and high school, frequently violently so. Thankfully, once it's over and you can get out of that crucible and enter adulthood, you have a chance to finally grow into yourself without getting constantly pruned back.

[reckless-blues.livejournal.com]

Middle school is really interesting to me. We go through this animalistic culling where kids just instinctively hate people who would be less adequate breeding partners or inadequate contributors to group fitness and cohesion (fat people, ugly people, the socially awkward, the mentally or physically disabled, girls who are thought to be too sexually available) and do everything they can to try and drive them out. I don't really care for evolutionary psychology, but I wonder sometimes if the species did that in prehistoric times too and such people were just forced out of the herd and died alone.

[dmousey.livejournal.com]

Junior high sucked balls(as my daughter would say). Our ego's are so fragile then. Glad you survived it to be the strong young woman you are today! :)

[crisp-sobriety.livejournal.com]

Damn, this is beautiful and powerful and amazing (and you read it so well!). One of my fave entries in LJ Idol so far!

This made me very, very jealous of your poetry skills.