Tonight's Poet Corner: An Ode To Naysayers

An Ode To Naysayers
by Belinda Roddie

I think you need to talk a little louder
when scolding me - I can't smell the searing
of my cerebral meat unless you scorch it
rather than simply singe it, leave black marks
across my memories, amp up my anxiety
attacks with a branding iron. If you don't

pump up the volume, I will only be left
with the echo of your admonishment. Of
your mockery. Of your attempt to shame me.
You want to discipline me, as if you are
the headmaster and I'm the quivering student
sweating through their uniform, clenching

a leatherbound journal between both hands
like I'm squeezing my heart between my lungs,
forcing every breath out one by one by one.
Your words glued together are a yardstick
ready to turn my knuckles purple from your
self-prepared percussion. I am not weak or frail,

though if I were, how much more monstrous
you would look, rather than simply petty
and pompous. You handle authority like a golden
bauble; you think it's delicate, yet it holds more
power than the eye of a hurricane, could cause
more damage than a coronal mass ejection,

shut down every power grid across the globe
so we scream with wires jammed between
our teeth, and yet the northern lights are
still stunning. They spread color across
the sky like curly locks of Mother Earth's
hair, neon exodus from space to home.

Authority requires beauty equal to brutality.
Your teeth chatter as you attempt to stitch broken
glass into the open wound in my cheek. You think
you cut the skin, but in truth, it was only because
I bit the inside of my mouth too hard to keep
myself from verbally eviscerating you, like

skinning a goat for personal sacrifice.
The pulsing flesh beneath your ire, your
pseudo-confidence, it hides every vein
that creates the web of your own paranoia.
You are listless in the aura of my success. You
are unwilling to keep the scepter I've earned

clean. You are afraid of me surpassing you like
an heir to your ill-begotten throne. I count every
step to the dais like it's my last. You count gems
as if you expect their shine to last longer than
your malice. You won't be able to hammer out
my downfall. Rusted iron can never hold up

against titanium. You'll talk louder, hope that
just the sound waves will knock me to the floor.
My feet have grown roots through my shoes
into the carpet. You won't be able to yank me
from my foundation so easily. If you want to
shame me, you won't do it just by wagging your

finger at me like I am a petulant child. Your
hands will turn to clay and crumble in the heat
soon enough. I will soothe the burns you leave
across my body with self-esteem as potent as
aloe vera; face it, friend, you make a worse
god than those clinging to Mount Olympus,

glutted with their own hamartia. I am no
god, either - but I can be a master at my
own craft, and your words fade, like cheap
ink, against my shoulders, and I shake your
derision off as easily as a snake's skin, and
return to the forge to build my next shield.