Below is a poem I wrote about a more personal struggle of mine. Eating, although I absolutely love food and I am such an adventurous eater, is a chore for me. I have battled with self-love since middle school and it is a war that I have still not won. The things that I have said to myself over the year, I could never say them to another person. If I saw a little girl looking in the mirror and picking herself apart, I would pull her aside and convince her that she is beautiful. I have not yet learned to do that to myself, but I am a work in progress. Some days are better than others. Everybody has parts of themselves that they do not like. It is important to focus on yourself as a whole, with both the good and the bad parts. You are beautiful as a whole. Focus on that.
I see this person
on the other side of the glass
She’s just staring,
So I’m staring back
And when she blinks, I blink
And when she cries
The tears fall from my eyes too.
She looks down
And so do I
She is looking down at herself.
And I am watching her.
I am doing it too.
The glass is smooth
The glass is cold.
The glass is just glass
Reflective of what I see
And how I feel.
Almost every day.
The girl looks back up.
Her eyes are swelling with tears.
“Why are you crying?”
I wonder aloud
But my voice is wavering.
Oh.
I am crying too.
I feel the judgmental heat
burning from the tears in her eyes.
She looks herself up and down.
Then, her hand moves.
It’s on her stomach.
She seems to be pulling at it.
Wishing it would go away.
This bullying and torment feels
as though it lasts for hours.
But it has only been a minute.
I wonder why she would
do this to herself.
Can’t she see that this
torture isn’t any good?
That she doesn’t deserve it?
She wipes her tears.
My hands are wet.
She leaves the glass.
I can’t see her anymore.
But then she comes back.
She’s in a t-shirt.
Crumpled and ill-fitting.
She hides her figure underneath.
It’s my t-shirt.
The girl is me.
I am the one picking on myself.
Saying and doing things
That I could never dare to say
To another person.
I’m the one with tears in my eyes
As I pick myself apart
Piece by piece
Until there is nothing left.
It is horrible that the days I feel the best about myself
Are the same days that I eat nothing at all.
My body has become the bane of my existence,
The focus of society.
Inner beauty overshadowed by
A darkness of standards.
“You lost so much weight!”
“Have you checked the scale?”
“Are you eating?”
“You look so good!”
If I look so good now
then tell me
what did I look like before?
I am seething
That this is my vanity
This is what matters so much to me.
I wake up in the morning
And I wonder
What am I going to eat today?
To be skinny.
To be beautiful.
There are more parts of me.
And they are great
But this is what matters.
My looks.
There are more pressing matters
In the world
But here we are
Consumed by vanity.
America is fat.
Do I look like America?
I think I do.
And I hate it.
I break the glass.
It shatters.
And I am still staring.