Goddess Complex: A Ditty
My friends say I have one of these. (See Subject Line)
Well, they haven't said it for a while. We've all gotten very gentle with each other over the years, for the most part. Anyway, sometimes the phrase "Goddess Complex" had variations. "Queen Complex." "Royalty Complex." "Too High Standards." "Elitist." Or even "You Should Just Let Your Hair Down and Get Dirty Sometimes Jeez."
Well. I can't help myself. I guess I never could.
My parents like to tell the "embroidered jeans" story of my childhood. This, wherein my flower child hippy mother offered me an adorable pair of the aforementioned trousers, and I looked at them disdainfully and riposted, in my best four-year-old Empress voice:
"You might as well fwow dose away, fow I will nevew weaw them."
(I couldn't say my R's as a child. I had speech therapy for that in second grade. I still sometimes slip, when I'm tired or confused, and the R just... vanishes. It happens very rarely. It brings me all the way back.)
That said, I'm almost 33. And what I wonder is--is this Goddess Complex thing a way to disguise insecurity? If so, I have to say it's STILL much more to my taste than hating myself and thinking myself unworthy of affection. But it's worth examining for about 15 minutes. So I did. IN DOGGED DOGGEREL!
THE GODDESS COMPLEX
by
C. S. E. Cooney
Why not have them young and handsome?
Why not have them rare?
Why not have them marble-cut
With sunlight in their hair?
Why not climb them ladder-like
Their ribcages your rungs?
Why not call them right to heel
To sing in seven tongues?
Why not have them deft, adept
And holier-than-thou
And wicked when you want them so
And prompt when you say now?
Why not have them slim and tall
Or sharp and small and quick?
Why not have them rosy gold
With cherry lips to lick?
Wherefore settle? Wherefore chase?
And sigh and watch and pine?
Should not they all but beg to kneel
These men you claim as thine?
And if they never see you there
Full radiant and wise
With bonfire grin and rounded limbs
And lightning in your eyes--
Do not mourn them, do not grieve
Or turn to facile rhyme;
They never were, they never will be
Worth your sacred time.
To all you Goddesses out there. What else can we do but laugh?
Well, they haven't said it for a while. We've all gotten very gentle with each other over the years, for the most part. Anyway, sometimes the phrase "Goddess Complex" had variations. "Queen Complex." "Royalty Complex." "Too High Standards." "Elitist." Or even "You Should Just Let Your Hair Down and Get Dirty Sometimes Jeez."
Well. I can't help myself. I guess I never could.
My parents like to tell the "embroidered jeans" story of my childhood. This, wherein my flower child hippy mother offered me an adorable pair of the aforementioned trousers, and I looked at them disdainfully and riposted, in my best four-year-old Empress voice:
"You might as well fwow dose away, fow I will nevew weaw them."
(I couldn't say my R's as a child. I had speech therapy for that in second grade. I still sometimes slip, when I'm tired or confused, and the R just... vanishes. It happens very rarely. It brings me all the way back.)
That said, I'm almost 33. And what I wonder is--is this Goddess Complex thing a way to disguise insecurity? If so, I have to say it's STILL much more to my taste than hating myself and thinking myself unworthy of affection. But it's worth examining for about 15 minutes. So I did. IN DOGGED DOGGEREL!
THE GODDESS COMPLEX
by
C. S. E. Cooney
Why not have them young and handsome?
Why not have them rare?
Why not have them marble-cut
With sunlight in their hair?
Why not climb them ladder-like
Their ribcages your rungs?
Why not call them right to heel
To sing in seven tongues?
Why not have them deft, adept
And holier-than-thou
And wicked when you want them so
And prompt when you say now?
Why not have them slim and tall
Or sharp and small and quick?
Why not have them rosy gold
With cherry lips to lick?
Wherefore settle? Wherefore chase?
And sigh and watch and pine?
Should not they all but beg to kneel
These men you claim as thine?
And if they never see you there
Full radiant and wise
With bonfire grin and rounded limbs
And lightning in your eyes--
Do not mourn them, do not grieve
Or turn to facile rhyme;
They never were, they never will be
Worth your sacred time.
To all you Goddesses out there. What else can we do but laugh?