Magazine cutouts are everywhere
With perfect outfits, perfect bodies, perfect smiles, perfect lives.
What are we in comparison to these high school knock outs
Who are always glowing and never knowing what agony is left in their wake?
Do they see the tears and the years of fingers down throats because food was a mistake,
Because one piece of cake could tip the scale and steal the Barbie doll image
Of a flat stomach and skinny thighs?
Do they realize how girls fantasize of airbrushed futures that could be reached with the antidote to their poison calories?
Do they know of when mascara roots grow and bloom swelled poppies,
Or when a full tube of lipstick won't do the trick of stopping lips from trembling?
Will they recognize the game of pick-up-sticks carved in their arms, or feel alarm
When the pill and beer bottles are feather weight?
Do they hear the racking sobs or feel their hearts throb
At the whisper, "You're not good enough," echoing in their own brains,
And when their courage is slain, they believe it?
Will they ever pay a kind word, a compliment
To fill ribs like a bird and fizz until you're back on your feet again?
No.
No, kindness is a dirty trait, a smudge on their clean slate.
So there you are, alone on the floor, wishing and hoping all the more
That you could spike their hair spray with empathy,
To make them see that beauty is not skin-deep, and with a leap of faith
We could all stand tall.
Equal.
Accepted.
No more poppies, no more bloody lines, no more empty stomachs,
No more society confines,
But this is not to be.
This is life under the microscope.
Are they watching?
Yes, they watch.
Do they see?
No.