THE REAL ART IS YOU

/ August 15, 2014

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I wrote Beauty In The Beast on the Sisterwives website recently about self-image.  I want to dedicate this post to all of those with self image issues.  We obviously all see beauty differently.

About a month ago I posted a picture on twitter.  I had spent forever trying to look pretty, flat ironing my hair just to walk out into a wind storm.  You never know what kinds of things a picture as simple as that might inspire in a stranger.

This time my tweet inspired this beautiful poetic sentiment.  I’d have to be really broken to not let these words reach my heart and soul.  I wanted to share these beautiful words because of the amazing message it contains.  Thank you Carl Dubois, I cry every single time I read these words.

THE REAL ART IS YOU

If given the latitude to call this a poem

I’d call this a collaboration even as you didn’t contribute a word

Because none of the words would exist, and not in this arrangement, without you

Putting them into motion

Imagine, if you will, someone who puts nouns in front of verbs

And moves words around for a living

Surfing through your creative expression of yourself and your frequent rebirths

And being struck by the power of your raw honesty

Huge self image issues tonight so I spent 25 min flat ironing my hair and then this… #wind
https://twitter.com/HastyWords/status/478393811404865536
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At that moment, everything comes to a halt

And there are no words

Only awe

Because, the word arranger, the word re-arranger

The writer and editor

Talks regularly with his therapist

Who sees his self image issues clearly

And reminds him she has more confidence in him than he has in himself

And when words finally come, after the #wind of the raw revelation

They arrange themselves something like this:

If you, in all of your reinventions and rebirths

Can have self-image issues

Then it forces me to revisit my own

Because if someone with your natural beauty

Can doubt

Where does that leave me?

Rather than question whether I could ever see myself differently

I happen to imagine that it’s a curse we all have

Even the beautiful such as yourself

And maybe I should cut myself some slack

Women have an advantage in the sense

They can paint and color and play and be their self artists

A world few men embrace

For we don’t paint on a face or a mood

And looking at all of the lovely ways in which you paint the naked canvas of your

Face and hair and lips and soul

Through rebirth through writing

And the things you do while looking in the mirror

The selfie you that emerges has, clearly, a different

Selfie-image than what we see

The poetry lies in the moment

Of seeing the naked canvas

Of your natural self

Not as the canvas

But as the art

As the poem

You

In your natural state

That’s the poem

The art

The rest are just different stanzas

With different meters and timbres and colors

But the art is you

I wonder if you know that

The wind loves you

It was telling you that on your day of self-image issues

It was kissing you and saying

Touch up and paint and iron and shape all you want

The real poem

The real art

Is you

Written by Carl Dubois

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