I look into the mirror,
bare
as my mother birthed me.
The curves, the planes, the nodes, the bumps, the stretches, the scars
I look into the mirror and think
who is this body in front of me
To whom
do those flabs,
those curves belong,
those scars belong
I look into the mirror and I think
someday, someday, someday
that perfect body is waiting for me
after a successful diet,
a cleanse,
a workout,
that run I’ve been putting off for weeks.
I look into the mirror and I think,
and I think,
I am a woman chasing her own tail,
but not my tail,
the tail of another woman’s who chasing another woman’s another woman’s another woman’s
and so on and so on
until the last woman finally grasps the tail and rises victorious to the mirror
to only see she is skin and bones
I look into the mirror and I think
beauty is unpredictable, evolving,
Beauty is quickly changing,
she expects the best of both worlds
Curvy, thin, big breasted, flat chested,
beauty expects you to be hourglass with no extra bumps,
big butt no butt, short, tall, thick brows, thin brows, thick lips, thin lips,
beauty expects you to have long neck, tiny waist, thin thighs,
beauty expects you to be muscular, and strong,
beauty expects you to be everything,
and nothing at all
You could almost say beauty... is a woman
I look into the mirror and I think
women,
we have seen too many funerals,
women,
we have seen too many suicide notes,
women,
we have seen too many
“You’re ugly.”
“How could you go out looking like that”
“You could stand to lose a few pounds”
“That dress doesn’t fit you right. It’s unflattering.”
Women,
we have too many sallow girls admitted into hospitals
We have been too many traitors against ourselves
Beauty wants us to fail,
to curl into ourselves,
to flinch at the face in the mirror
Beauty wants us to cut,
to starve,
to shudder over pounding porcelain toilet seats,
convulsing in fluorescent light
Beauty,
a co-conspirator with our menstrual cycle,
like beauty knows when we’re most vulnerable
She wants us to obsess over photoshopped frames
plastered pictures of perfect…
perfect
She wants me to know I’m not perfect
Beauty swings from the dangling earrings that pull on our ears,
the stiletto heel of our “going out” boots,
she whispers that the other girl is prettier than we are.
I look into the mirror
and I turn my heel,
and the mirror shatters
Because mirror,
because beauty,
when did beautiful become a prerequisite for warrior
Women,
when did we begin fighting a war against ourselves in the mirror
A war we already decided to lose
When did a sixteen year old feel compelled to hate the body she was given
When did we decide to kick the gift horse in the mouth
When did ‘healthy’ become less important than beautiful
When did beauty hurt
When did beauty start to tear us apart
When did beauty become ugly
So I don’t look into the mirror…
Because the mirror doesn’t tell me anything anymore
The mirror shows me what beauty demands I be:
distorted,
Disneyified, filterfied, designer, dreamy, defined and misdefined
And what I’m not
So I don’t look into the mirror…
I don’t need this manufactured, man-made model
Of what beauty is supposed to be
When beauty is not something you see
So I don’t look into the mirror
Because beauty comes from right here