Everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room.
—Ani DiFranco
The chin falls, the jowls fall
and gather under, this cheek rouge

of amaranth collects in seams, my face 
cracked in pink, I think the hate 

sinks, too, as I age toward absence–
so good to finally be a phantom. 

How voluminous my robes 
have become as I expand toward 

nothingness! Everyone’s a little 
relieved they can’t see me when 

I haunt the agora in sensible shoes: 
the ex-boyfriend ghosted by 

the very hair on his head, the even 
older women who delight in 

the dissolution of my countenance, 
which everyday blurs a bit more, 

this year’s girl who wears her youth 
like a mocking smile. My friends, 

too, who finally feel equal, our lip 
rouge feathering all the same 

in the rivulets that flow out from 
our puckering mouths. As a girl, 

I was chased to an alley and beaten 
in the mouth by the angry fists 

of girls who only wanted to break 
what they couldn’t have, their ragged 

breath playing in the ugly whistle 
of their throats, their skin mottled 

from the effort of such demolition. 
Who can understand beauty? You
​ 
love it in the wild garden tangled 
by flowering vines—that’s fine​–.

but on a face you’d prefer it 
punished, as if time doesn’t 

take care of that anyway.  
​​
Sonia Greenfield is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Letdown (White Pine Press, 2020) and Boy with a Halo at the Farmer's Market (Codhill Poetry Prize, 2015). Her chapbook American Parable won the 2017 Autumn House Press chapbook prize, and her forthcoming chapbook Helen of Troy is High AF will be published by Harbor Editions in 2023. Her poetry and prose have appeared in the 2018 and 2010 Best American Poetry, PANK, Washington Post, Willow Springs, diode, and elsewhere. She lives with her family in Minneapolis where she teaches at Normandale College, edits the Rise Up Review, and advocates for both neurodiversity and the decentering of the cis/het white hegemony. More at soniagreenfield.com.
image: brad lloyd vs unsplash