She grows up happy, free, and oh so kind,
Until seeds of insecurity get planted in her mind,
Suddenly her head is no longer filled with wonder,
And anxiety booms in her young heart like thunder,
She never thought about the colour of her eyes,
But suddenly, brown is only a colour to despise,
Cursing fate for not being born blond and fair,
Society pressures her to hate her curly hair,
She never cared about the numbers on the scale,
But now, she pays attention to every single detail,
“Suck it in, don’t let them notice you have a belly.”
“Pretty means looking like the girls on the telly.”
“Don’t smile, your crooked teeth need a metal cage.”
Braces to straighten them before she comes of age,
“Your fixed teeth look good, but your lips are small.”
So she gets Botox and fillers to look like a doll,
She thinks looking good is motivation to starve,
The mirror shows her areas on her body to carve,
And when she no longer has modifications to make,
She finds sneering people calling her plastic and fake,
She realises she’s been playing a game she cannot win,
And now she’s even more uncomfortable in her own skin,
Staring at a mirror, eyes framed by a line of black,
She doesn’t recognise the person staring back,
“What a shame, she was a beauty when she was little.”
“I wonder what caused her heart to become so brittle.”
It’s because pretty flowers don’t bloom in a drought,
Society should’ve thought of that before draining her out.
We should teach young girls to love who they are,
Every freckle, every mole and every single scar,
Girls should never see each other as competition,
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; It’s not a mission.
-Amy x
