Here's to us,

We'll call it our song.

This is the lament of mismatched angles,

Of misfits and misnomers, and overused clichés,

Of flowers past their bloom, of buds ill-formed and void of honey,

And sometimes, just sometimes, a pretty flower ,

Whose petals sag in the downpour,

Shivering with each raindrop

Bending further and further still.

This is the dirge of the whispers in the wind,

Of words spoken over and over again,

Of semantics and discourse and compulsive dissociation,

And the ease with which the conversation,

Turns into tinkling laughter, a sardonic smile,

At contradictions that slip past puckered lips.

This is the sound of the rustle of paper -

Pretty, pretty paper dresses

And the pretty, pretty china dolls who wear them,

And the music they make when they fall off their pedestals,

Fragments of porcelain, like stardust, on the floor,

Everybody gathers round to watch,

And fallibility becomes just another by-word.

Here's to the repetition, and worn out hope,

Shrill voices in the din

And their vanity.

Here's to the disillusionment,

And to the resignation

And the silent, sour acceptance.

And a song that plays on end.

Here's to us.

A/N – Sometimes flash poetry comes from your design professor bashing feminists (by calling them a confused, contradictory lot) in a full classroom, and laughing when the female TA tries to interject with an explanation about how our issues are valid and universally applicable. Slightly morose, pessimistic piece, but one I wrote keeping in mind all the underdogs of the world. I hope you enjoyed reading it :)