This poem was written in a series for a friend, it is meant to empower girls and to reflect on the growth that many girls go through. It is meant to see how women get empowerment to feel beautiful, and how media, socialization, and many things affect the growth of becoming a woman. This is the first in the series. In the Mirror:
In the mirror I see splintered eyes wasting truth that’s never spoken. Admonishing any beauty there is in trust, because… what lies beneath… is hypocrisy. Everything I loathe, removed from beautiful, never to d e f i n e ME.
Liar is stamped upon my forehead like a crest or emblem to cheat me of my own game f o o ling myself. I console others with words and voice I have NEVER felt, with the longing for beautiful, a standard, never met.
My wintered face speckled with scars from a war against acne which I lost costing me what I rightfully deserve, or so they say my s e l f esteem and confidence. With every zit to this day I shrivel into a pit of homely. However ridiculous it seems, there is still nothing gorgeous about volcanoes ready to erupt splotching your face and remnants of ash surviving on your nose in the form of blackheads. Then we have the bags of puff beneath my eyes collecting salt from all the tears I’ve cried, and my strongly defined jaw speaks, manly. My FACE is so defined that it baffles the cross be- tween Native America in my cheek bones and blonde hair blue eyed Swede, not pretty b u t different.
My flat square shaped image [circling my face with my hand] speaks desire with little lips and wears much of the “has been” /“never enough” beneath the nose in the phil- trum, it sweats of damage done reflecting from the inside out., and my innards are destruction, not far from bombing a village, colonialism, pillage, rape, or cataclysmic natural disaster. So it feels… not even a scrape or grain… of gorgeous.
The figure I walk in screams girl… undefined without a curve of woman. Except per- haps, the part that’s awkwardly disproportioned and overgrown; A symbol defining one unworthy of a name but an attribute in which helped teach me to HATE… myself. Five-two, 125 pounds, 34… double D. I would LOVE to reflect beautiful.
The lines layering my eyes impose worry, contention, survival. The crevices want to portray wisdom and lack much of what is there f e a r. The weathered spots seen above my neck are sure to remind of pain, sorrow, abandonment… and loss. Anywhere upon my surface I search for l o v e. Where is it? I’m trying hard, to read… beautiful.
Myself, I know what I think not spoke and I’m aiming to view how anyone could imagine this portrait as beautiful knowing what I know a b o u t me. It’s an abomination, because I slander revenge of witchcraft and sorcery in my head wanting to inflict guns, germs, and steel upon them. None of which works; horrible.
I’m standing in the mirror wincing at my own image, decrepit, nasty, putrid to see to see I’m surprised it doesn’t break but thankful also… it means there’s hope to find o n e speckle of beautiful. Instead I look at me and speak “never good enough,” simply U – G – L – Y [spell out in sign language]. And the mirror it doesn’t lie.
