Honest Abe Gets Mad Jealous of the Pretty, Successful Girl from My High School

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                                You are tall, but I

am Lincoln. I tower over you

                     with my addresses and bolo tie, the worn-out sound

          of my backwoods accent, and my mythic rail-splitting

          backstory.                              Sure, you look fine in flowing

                     maxi-dresses and I’m a depressive,

          but they’re never going to give up one minted cent

          for you. Here. Have two, of mine, my two cents:

Beauty is overrated. In fact, it can act as Satan’s limb.

          It sends emancipation and other five-dollar words blazing

                     through my temple.

                                                      But you wouldn’t understand.

                     Neither would you know how hard it is to drive in Illinois

where all the license plates repeat

                                                      a face like mine

          as they tailgate me and then pass and slow down — I’m cutting myself off

          constantly in the land of me. Revel in your silver

                     spoon, your anonymity, your white-stripped teeth,

                                and moleless neck —

                                                                     Perhaps I should rise above these petty grievances

          and from my own ugliness to my own height, but whether I shall

                                                     I awfully forbode I shall not.

1. Satan’s limb is what it’s rumored Mary Todd’s step-mother called her.

2. The other italicized lines in “Honest Abe Gets Mad Jealous of the Pretty, Successful Girl from My High School” are direct quotes from Abraham Lincoln’s letter to his law partner, John Stuart.