I only called you a sad girl in the title so people would read this poem.
Because truth is, if I’m going to lay all my cards on the table,
they might as well be kings and queens, and not just jokers.
I want to change this whole game for you.
So I will extend this peace offering like an olive branch: strangers
must stop boxing you in with a single glance and defining you
as a “sad girl" because this purple mood clings to you like brass knuckles.
They think you use it as a weapon, but your best weapon is really
your intellect, the way you can identify 250 different species of insects
simply by spreading apart their shimmery wings or counting
the number of barbs on their spindly black legs.
But even your friends try to marinate like steaks in that dark aura
that seems to pour off you like a cloak at times-
if I could tell you anything, it would be to let them enjoy
their barbecue alone. You’re not responsible for their hunger.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your sadness is gorgeous
or quirky or romantic; after all, David Foster Wallace
wouldn’t have hanged himself if it were.
At a beauty pageant, your sadness would win last prize.
Actually, no, it wouldn’t even place.
It would be full of cellulite and pockmarks and moles.
If you were equivalent to your sadness, then your skin
would turn blue like the color of mood ring it represents, and unless
you have some rare condition that would make this possible,
then you are not a sad girl.
You are just a girl who also happens to be sad.