Skin

I was told when I was 9 to cut down on the hamburgers.

Just another voice added to the choir preaching:

You

Are

Not

Good

Enough.

Every day my heart beats beneath the shield of my skin.

This plaster protects my organs like a mother protects her children,

Pushing out parasites determined to puncture its titanium coating.

This same skin shields me from the dangers of society,

But it is ineffective when it comes to the malice of my own mind.

Its perfect protection is not worth its weight when there is

Too much

Skin.

Why have our minds become nothing but calculators?

Length times width times height equals the volume of a 3D figure.

How many times will we calculate our size before we become

nothing but numbers?

We want to lose a dimension:

Less space

Less skin.

But shedding the skin means surrendering ourselves.

We are taught to feel pretty when we feel hungry.

On our skin, we see nothing but flaws.

We take a sharpie to its surface to cross out the things we don’t like,

Saving up for surgery that will cure us of this disease

But all we get

Are more scars.

Now mirrors are our grade books

And society is our teacher.

We are marked down for our mistakes, our imperfections

But now a D is desirable.

In the locker room we

Pick each other apart like vultures,

Pointing out flaws,

Pining for perfection,

Are we just programmed to punish?

But isn’t it “locker room talk” that started it all?

They have locked us in a Barbie box

But we don’t fit the mutilated mold

So we sand ourselves down just to squeeze into a size smaller.

We are taught not to like the skin that blankets our bodies.

When we are objectified, it smothers our fires.

They push us to our knees,

Telling us to pray to the porcelain.

You tell me I'm pretty

But all I see is imperfection.

There is a war on my body

But I have no defense,

No armor,

Just skin.

(my image)