Attack of the Clones

(after Linda Pastan's "Angels" )

I am tired of fake girls,

Cloned and bleached,

foundation caked.

Inch-thick eye liner, hiding the children they still are,

masking the innocence they pretend to have lost.

I am tired of exaggerated emotions,

I love you’s and other sorts.

Chain reaction tears and

dependability for eating, breathing, speaking;

rights stolen by the communist A-list.

Souls only visible orange, damaged-skin deep.

Remember kindergarten, I want to tell them,

wearing first day dresses

and hair in carefree tangles,

Laughter and pure and original.

What does conformity mean?

It smells like Abercrombie & Fitch

and takes a real girl and makes her forget.

i find myself writing centos in my head daily, stringing together lyrics from various songs that seemed to correspond with one another. i'm essentially using other people's words, i suppose. it's simple, but i'll try not to make a habit out of it. but take my word, i will always cite a cento when it is in fact, a cento. lately i've done some digging, and here's one i actually wrote down from last year.

Landslide (a cento)

Wake up kids; we’ve got the dreamer’s disease

There were so many fewer questions

When stars were still just the holes to heaven

Our dreams, they are made out of real things

You are young men, you must be living

Love is the answer,

at least to most of the questions in my heart.

You only get what you give

And I don’t mind anymore.

All the stars and boulevards ain’t close enough for you

Are you happy now?

I’m not lost, just undiscovered

Someday you will find me caught beneath the landslide

You don’t know me,

you don’t wear my chains.