Kids Say the Darndest Things & We Should Exploit Them After We Correct Them

My aunt looks like Justin Bieber.

 When I grow up I wanna be skinny. Not fat like my mom.

I have two really small toes like midgets do.

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These gems sparkle from the mouths of third grade students I’ve met this fall. I work with an afterschool health and literacy program that provides poetry workshops for elementary kids, and I am constantly reminded how people become diluted as they age. Children are natural poets—honest, succinct. Their unfiltered nature can be endearing and devastating.  But are they inherently cruel, or more like litmus paper strips, absorbing influence?

e.g. — This baby:

I imagine this baby reared its head through the birth canal with the stank eye.

Last week, an 8-year-old boy asked me if I was “grown.” I find it difficult to call myself a man, considering I still can’t grow a full beard. And yet when I told him I was 23, his reaction instilled in me the fear that  I must  appear as tired as most Wal-Mart shoppers. Today, while I was explaining metaphors, another boy blurted, “You got caterpillar eyebrows. Actually, you got a unibrow.” I froze and thanked him:

1.  It was the strongest metaphor of the day.

2.  I squared out because he hit a soft spot— I’ve worn two eyebrows since 1996 after my peers mistook me for Dracula when I was a magician for Halloween.

I can grow a bold unibrow, but I’m not as free as Frida Kahlo.

As my boyfriend grills salmon patties for dinner, I tweeze my unibrow in the mirror and wonder: Is there such a thing as original sin? Does electrolysis hurt? What is the appropriate age for a chemical peel?