Die Pretty
(Like the Rest of Them)
 

Here we go again
me, alone and inarticulate
about the beauty myth and how it
gets
me down
prevents me from
connecting
keeps me hating men
makes me embarrassed to be a
heterosexual woman
with this belly
and thighs
with this midsection that
refuses to 
show
its ribs
so that you can
see 
where you might
crack them open
like a bird cage
where you might catch 
the spectacle 
of
my 
death
watch her crow's beak
glisten 
with 
the guts
of the 
carrion she
ate
like the days I refused
to eat
and my body began to 
eat itself
like so much
road kill

and why do i get the idea
that it's something you'd like
to see?
diminished me...
smaller and weaker than 
it's possible to be

I have tried
the finger in throat
coffee and cigarettes for
breakfast 
lunch and dinner
maybe some oxygen to snack on
but if I do that,
gotta make sure to 
sweat those calories off

and all for what?
to join my smaller sisters
under the approving 
male gaze,
to submit with the glee of the
feather light
to the process the blades/eyes of men
put us through, 
the hoops at razor point we 
jump through
so that someone can say,

"Hey, Pretty!"
while our flesh is pinned 
aside, spread, stretched
like a sausage skin
like that dissected frog in 9th grade

they pull apart the guts and label them, 
what viscera is this? they say,
what half digested flies show us
your great sin of eating?
our eyes/scalpels need to see if
you are pure inside
did you drink 8 glasses of water today
and forego all else?
a vitamin pill is the only acceptable garnish
but barely
because it might just keep you
alive 
a little longer than we would like
and if you won't die for beauty,
if you can't 
die pretty
like the rest of them,
if you won't submit to silicone
and collagen
if you won't allow us our inspection
then what good are you to us?
And if you cannot be used
we will throw you away
don't want to waste
those mason jars, 
or formaldehyde 
we don't want to preserve you
if you can't just
lie back and
take it
die pretty like the rest of them
 
 

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