Tonight's Poet Corner: Stunt Double

Stunt Double
by Belinda Roddie

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if
the person who wrote these poems could stop
conversation as soon as she entered a room.
If she could make clocks put their ticking on hold,
make time cease its forward marching, just to pay
attention to the way she radiates in a dark space.
I wonder how many more people would listen

to the deluge of words and ideas if they were knotted
up in a fisherman's net for prey to nibble on, sweet
bait before she drags unsuspecting swimmers out
of angry saltwater. Maybe they'd take her a little
bit more seriously, laugh louder at the obnoxious
jokes and punches of wordplay iced across the
lingual cake, give more applause when she finishes

her diatribe and steps away from the microphone
with a sultry smile. I wonder what would happen
if I hired someone to recite my poems for me.
Someone with longer, less crazed hair than mine.
Someone with higher cheekbones than mine.
Someone with brighter, warmer eyes than mine.
Someone with a smaller stomach than mine,
slimmer arms than mine, thinner thighs than mine.
Someone who can suck charisma from a cup with

a straw instead of forcing it into their veins with a
needle. They can absorb it better. They can digest
it better. Someone who can turn every head in her
direction as soon as she steps onto a stage. Someone
who doesn't gain thirty pounds as soon as she sashays
in front of a camera. Someone whose voice holds fewer
cracks and glitches in its software, the tone perfect;

no lisps or impediments on her tongue. Someone
who can perform the part better than I can live it. I'll
organize casting calls, shove each poor woman or
bewildered non-binary victim up to the front and
offer them a poem with words more jagged than
the piece of paper it's written on. Demand that they
memorize my streams of consciousness, my floods

of ruminations, as if they mean something when
they sit in my mouth, but I'm sure they'd resonate
more coming from a symmetrical, aesthetically
pleasing face. I will strip their identities away
to fit with mine, make them an actor instead
of an individual. Who else can make an audience
believe they are enlightened other than the pretty

ones? As if they have nothing to show a crowd
besides beautifully carved features. As if they
don't have their own thoughts to spit out across
a pulsating canvas. I am selfish for demanding
that someone serve as my vessel for my verbal
vomit. They have their own bones and blood
to carry, and I expect to insert my own marrow

into their presentation. But soon enough, their bodies
will start to reject it. They'll jerk and convulse with
the epilepsy of my epistolary quagmires. They'll
only project my voice for so long before the curtain
is drawn back, and there I am, in my awkward and
bulky splendor. In my clumsy clothes with my hair
on fire. With my sloppy speech and my broken timbre.

And I will be shrieking to the ceiling lights
with all the brutality bursting from my throat,
"Will you take my language seriously if it's coming
from someone like me? Will you stop your conversation
just to hear these stupid lines? Can I slow the hours like
her? Can I glow like her? Can I not attend the callbacks
for my own story? These words are mine. This voice
is mine. This time is mine. This poem is mine."