Our word at Sunday Scribblings this week was CURIOUS.
CURIOUS GEORGETTE
She trudged through our high school halls, lost
Aimless, claiming no one as her love,
let alone as her friend.
Defenselessness, defensiveness, born of low self-esteem…
Her mirror reflected no redeeming qualities – only questions.
She never knew we admired her aloofness.
It seemed like proof that you could survive high school
without a claque to back your every utterance
Graduation for Georgette was a slam of her parents’ back door
and a bus to the Left Coast.
The most she could score was a waitress gig,
but the tips were sometimes rolled in papers
or powdered, in neatly folded, palmable packets.
This was bliss. The otherworldly state, what was missing.
Communal living, easy giving
A belonging, a sense of family at last.
She offered her body to many men and
contracted various venereal diseases.
Still, she was pleased that she was wanted (though warted).
Dabbling in acid: Placid conversations with river frogs.
She produced artwork – optical delusions infused with
confused contortions of her new reality.
The hissing kiss of hashish in a hookah led to opiates of a wide variety,
side-winding her to limited life choices.
Not heeding her inner voice
(with its annoying mantra: “CAUTION!”),
she finally gave way to the needle.
Super Georgette, the heroin of her own life story.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Down the hold, harasses by nasty queens (and other tarts)
who wanted their money, honey.
Mad slatterns offered a spot in their stables,
and she complied… lied to her parents when she’d call for money
“I’m behind in my rent”
(I make rent using my behind)
smaller and smaller georgette shrank
until one day, shanked and shriveled,
she ceased to be at twenty-three.
Curiosity killed the kitten.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 
Dangerous With a Pen
So glad you visited my blog and that it led me over here to track down your “curious” poem. Love it, how realistic it is but seamlessly twined with the Alice story. Fantastic plays on words throughout!
Lindsey 🙂
Sharp Little Pencil
I also like that our blog names have a somewhat similar theme. Obviously we cannot be trusted with sharp instruments; we use them to create poetry! And you see what I meant in commenting on yours… still have that Lewis Carrollesque wording floating around in my head. I have a feeling good dreams are ahead tonight.
Thanks for stopping by! Amy
mypoeticlicense
What a tangled web of ridiculously good writing, Amy. I’d read one (that was a goood one), then bam, hit another (wow, gooood one), then again you’d slam another on your virtual “paper”…big fat bravo!
You were away, and I’ve been away, but I’m happy to have run into you once again….I’ll be baaack.
– Dina
Sharp Little Pencil
Gee, DIna, I’m flattered, really. I love your writing, so this means a lot. Georgette sort of fell off my pencil and described herself on the page with minimal editing. A lucky prompt for me! Peace, Amy
poetcolette
I think I know her (you)!
Sharp Little Pencil
Some of her is definitely me during Amy: The Lost Years!!
uponthewingsofnight
A really good poem, Amy. I’m glad that you are no longer starring in Amy: The Lost Years. This poems reminds me of a line from a song: Don’t ever trust, don’t ever trust the needle, it lies. Brett
Sharp Little Pencil
Oh yeah, and I never, ever did. THANK GOD for the dentist who scared the wits out of me at 8 by plunging a needle into my arm while I was watching. Mom forgot to warn me it was full-under oral surgery; perhaps she was stoned when she made the appt. But I do remember the purples and blues twinkling in front of my eyes…! Now I cannot bear to see any needle do anything. When I give blood, I close my eyes and tell them, Just let me know when you’re going in!