In a Way (Untitled Poem)

I wrote this poem about two years ago but I don't think I've ever published it. It was written to be a spoken-word poem that I've performed twice.

In a way,

What she saw in the mirror

Was an upside-down bell curve.

It started before she knew

That body image could exist

And she was blissfully ignorant

Of how beautiful she was

But she knew by fifth grade

That the clothes her mom

Would not let her pick out

That she based on their quality, not style

And whether or not they were cheap

Were weird.

That’s when that ignorance started

To turn

Into the monster of knowledge

At age twelve, she refused

To really smile for school pictures

Because her teeth were crooked

And her peers had braces already.

But her first year of high school

Was the bottom of the bell.

Not only did she stand

In front of her mother’s

Bathroom mirror

And pull out her eyebrows

Strand by unrelenting strand,

She stopped eating.

He was cute and he said “love” to her

He was as thin and tall as a silver sword

And he made her buy the tickets

To the homecoming dance

The week before the dance,

Her mom took her to a real store

To buy a homecoming dress

Which she honestly

Didn’t get what that meant.

What it was supposed to look like

And how it was different

From what you wear to church

But she stood in the changing room

And looked in the mirror

At her stark, unsuspecting body

And saw, for the first time,

Someone who was too fat.

That last week before the dance,

She learned

How much weight you could lose

And how fast it could be done

But it didn’t matter

Because he wouldn’t speak to her

And he didn’t take her to the dance

And he told her in an email

That they were through.

But it did matter.

Because now she had a secret.

Now she had a solution.

She stopped packing lunches

And told her few friends

That she was fine, not to worry.

She didn’t eat dinner sometimes either

Because her parents

Might have actually believed her

When she said she felt ill.

She learned to love and welcome

The lion that visited

Her stomach more often than not

She let him stay

But taught him how not to roar.

And every night,

A journal would bear witness

To how much she had eaten

And what she could do better.

It wasn’t about control.

It probably wasn’t about beauty.

It was about love.

She was walking the tracks

Between a world that told her

“I love you unconditionally”

A world where her parents,

her God,

and some of her friends lived

And a world of worldliness

That said

“Do this and I’ll love you.”

“Do this and you might be good enough.”

Who in their right mind would reject the former

And embrace the latter?

Who in their right mind would trade true love

For a plasticized, vomit-filled mannequin of it?

Perhaps that fourteen-year-old

Had discovered insanity.

But

With the devil’s smothering presence

Came a deep fear

Which led her to pray.

She was trapped in a downward spiral

Toward a prison called Anorexia

And she knew it.

And she knew that only

One God

Could help her escape.

The Lord answered.

And she slowly started coming

back up the bell curve.

She now knows she is beautiful.

Even though she longs

for the childhood ignorance.

But more importantly

She knows that she is loved

She knows that love

Cannot be earned

Will never run out

And who in their right mind
Would choose beauty over love
Anyway?

God bless.