2. A Definitive (Poetry)

-Fifty-

On The Outside :

On the outside we're all taught to hate ourselves 

To see flaws and crevices and claw marks that no longer tell

Stories but tell shame and insecurities 

We look in the mirror just a little too long 

We stare at body parts that are just a little too far gone

We pick at scabs like bloodied wounds across our confidence 

All the while never once

Thinking, 'I'm happy in the skin I was birthed in.'

I gaze a little too long, at shoulders too broad 

Legs too tall, chin too small, eyes too large, nose too bent 

Patched and scarred skin like embroidery that has spent

Far too long neglected in the dark 

I criticise stomachs and thighs, stretch marks crossing the miles

Between the crooked teeth in my smile and the fat of my arms

Always fat, fat, fat in the farthest places that never reach my heart

Dysmorphia plays games, games intent on burning you whole 

Making you grab at burning red skin until it's gone

But now you're too thin, too sickly stick like thing

Boring and plain, like a plank of wood, you could have been

Golden. Always striving for a perfection that doesn't exist 

Created from societal expectations of a mind you were birthed in

Created from your own lust for perfectionism in skin

From your own bleeding ideals of beauty that doesn't goddamn exist. 

Grab at your elbows and peel back the skin

As if the bone underneath will be 

Any more appealing 

Pale and red, either this or that no in-between 

Always comparing yourself to bodies you will never look like 

Never happy in any form of skin. 

I'm sick of staring back at this thing in the mirror with clenched teeth

And gritting my hands into my too thick thighs 

Breathless panting at the end of another mile

In a race that never lets me reach the fucking end

Because I can be thin, I can be taunt and healthily clean

But the hate for this image comes from within

And on the outside, 

We're all just bags of skin. 

~J.K.M.