"Stare" Rough Draft

Rough draft of a poem I started on the 16th, but fleshed out and completed this afternoon. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. :D

“Don’t stare,” says your mother.
“It’s not polite.”
But you do.
Everybody does.

Eyes wide in longing,
disgust, shock,
unbridled curiosity—
Everybody stares.

The girl swathed in black,
cutting across the grass
to feel the dew on her toes—

The woman donning a headscarf
and long sleeves, even in
the harsh sunshine of summer—

The man, unshaven, standing on
the street corner with his sign
“Please Help” while cars whiz past—

The freaks, the outcasts,
the downtrodden, misunderstood,
sick and healthy, whole and amputee,
those for whom there is nothing, or everything,
who do not or have always belonged—

Everybody stares.

Even you who listen, right now,
with eyes wide in shock
and disgust, or idle curiosity;
while your mother’s voice whispers
“Don’t, it’s not polite.”

Let me tell you something.

Polite has no place
here, in this life so limited,
where each second is precious.

So damn your mother—stare—soak it in—
open your eyes
and see.