The Mirror

Every morning, I look in the mirror
To see 10 variations
Of the word ugly
I squeeze the fat around my stomach
Run my hands in claws
Down the red marks on my face
Down the tangled mess on my head
Combining into a result
That will never be what
a California blonde girl
Is supposed to look like
In this mirror,
All I see are imperfections
Insults springing like habits
To my mind
Before I can even
Drink my morning coffee
And comprehend a simple conversation
I am able to hate myself
And this hate is not an obligation
But a persistent drug
That we are all addicted to
In the never ending race
To rotten perfection
Unattainable standards
Laid out to little girls
By photo shopped faces in magazines
Pasted together and elongated parts
With fat cut off
Blemishes erased with a magic edit button
And this, we are told
Is our expectations.
And I want to ship every
Woman away
Thousands of light years into outerspace
Because, when the stars are out at night
We look at them in wonder
No critics on our mind
Just an appreciation for the way
They light up our darkness
And maybe it is their distance
Maybe we cannot love something
When we are close enough
To view its composition
I don’t know
But I do know
That I don’t want the next generation
To look into our mirror
I don’t want her to see the face
That every woman
Says “not good enough” to
She will not be a statistic
Of eating disorders, make up products
And a degenerating mental state
Due to the overwhelming string of To-Dos
Every time we look into our own eyes
I want her to see herself as a star
Floating in outer space
Too far above
For humans to do anything
But stare and say
“wow, we exist.”