Ode to Winona Ryder

By Jordan Currie

Funny how monsters can keep praying on the bodies

of the young and beautiful in exchange for spotlights

(or, in exchange for nothing,

nothing but bloody lips and

vomit and runny mascara)

but a shoplifting incident eighteen years ago

while depressed and high

and panic

and a broken elbow

can cut the stream

a blemish which turns into a scar

until the typewriters shout,

“Comeback! Comeback! Comeback for the disgraced!”

as though we weren’t the ones disgracing.

Winona,

princess of darkness and eye roll,

ruler of lonesome goth girls in the cafeteria corner

human woman whose pain was put on a display

like pastries in a window sill

branded crazy

doe eyed and lashing out

proceed with caution

You did not need to “come back”

you did not need relevance to breathe

you did not need to tightrope walk on the edge of a pedestal

while poked and prodded with pen caps

and blinded by flash

You were here all along.