Megan Gileza

I’m not, but that’s not the point.

Humans are kind of beautiful.

 

I’m an artist when I’m not everything else I have to be.

I like charcoal, even though it’s impossible

to keep it off your fingers and your face,

or maybe because of that. It’s soft and malleable

and no other medium can compare to the way dark turns light

or the way curves sprawl out across the page

beneath your charcoal-covered hands.

Charcoal especially likes girls.

 

It appreciates the beauty in the way that sharp

coincides with soft: collarbones, ankles, noses, hips

with shoulders, toes, lips, and bellies—the same

way that people tend to be both soft and sharp on the inside too.

From what I can tell

 

no one is just one or the other

so why try to label them at all?

We are the way that we are

whether called it or not

and anyway how can anyone really understand

the way that anyone else feels the world

or what that even means.

 

And can’t we just appreciate beautiful things

and the way people are soft and sharp at the same time

and like what they like without saying “I am this

I am that

I like boys

but also girls are pretty

but not like that”

the way that charcoal likes dark and light and curves

 

and it’s so blatantly obvious and it makes perfect sense

and you never think twice about it because it just is,

the way that people are what they are

no matter what you call them

and that’s kind of lovely

if we let it be.