Rhetoric

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Carly Ungerer

Rhetoric

My life is a study in rhetoric.

A sentence is never just that.

Every purposefully placed lol, 

delicately struck balance between commas, exclamation marks, and no punctuation at all

Becomes a calculation

A pleading:

“Don’t hate me”

Every text is a thesis

Masked by deliberate indifference.

Jokes and turns of phrases,

Do not measure my “quick wit.”

They are the drawn from the script;

 I scheme in my mind at night

Turning the pieces of myself and others,

Puzzling how I can better fit into the jigsaw

That I long to be a part of.

I pick the shape to contort myself into.

I am not a natural.

I am shaped by intention and longing.

I do not know who I would be without the eyes of others,

If I didn't consider rhetoric.