Fazes

This body

This body knows contradiction,
I had spent so long staring at the mirror
That I began to love it,
As much as I hated the girl who stood inside it.

Every curve, dent and lump I tried to smear,
But every time I looked into my reflection a new one would appear.

What I saw looking back at me no longer felt like mine,
I would trace my skin and weap,
Whilst birds sang and people slept at the brink of time.

Like fish drowning in water,
It got to a point that I was suffocating in my own skin,
The place meant to be home,
And where I should know how to live in.

By ten, this body knew shame,
It learnt it the day my eating habits,
Became the hot topic at every dinner and rose to fame.
When older eyes followed my plate ,
And kept track of servings that I couldn't tame.

Not soon after, it learnt inadequacy,
That it's weight is the first thing people notice.
I learnt that, the first time my grandma grabbed my pubescent arm,
And made it the focus.

Or maybe I learnt it at every family gathering,
Where big or fat became synonymous to my identity.
while kids my ages were gifted toys and books,
I was gifted bleaching cream, or clothes that were so small,
That it would make me quiver frantically.

This body knows hungry,
It knows hungry well.
By 12 I put myself on a diet,
And begun to play Russian roulette on plates my food would dwell,
And heaved into toilet bowls overflowed with insecurities so swell.

That diet was the first time I believed my mother was proud of me,
I wonder if she knew that my diet entailed starvation.
I don't think it would've mattered though,
The fact that she was the only person who hated my body more than I did,
Was my biggest contemplation.
She was the reason I mistook the rumbling in my stomach as a sign of applause,
And realised that my captor was my own cause.

After countless tearful prayers,
Aching heart, and a suffocated waist.
I took matters into my own hands,
And realised what I had to face.

I thought I figured it out,
Eat a little less, I said repeatedly,
Just skip a meal,
Progressively one meal became none,
And I forgot my deal.
But I made sure to eat enough to stay alive
Although, how much did I actually want to survive?

By 14 I had Diary books filled to the brim with criticism,
Enough that I could stitch them up and make wings to reach surrealism.
But I was smart enough to know that this body would not fly,
It would not let me escape.
It knew captivity well, that I couldn't deny.
It knew what felt like to be a sentenced served,
And that escape meant to die.

With all that it knew,
My body never figured out how to fear,
That it took up more space than deserved.
Wherever I went, it kept me in the shadows,
And didn't want me to appear.

And doesn't let me breathe without reminding me of its presence,
Hating this atrocious body,
became my entire essence.

And once again, I found myself,
Eyes fixated on the mirror.
This time with a twitching smile and blood dripping down my nuckles,
My reflection was never clearer.
Shattered shards spread like fairy dust,
And I looked so attentively, in hopes I was nearer.

Yet my body itself turned inward,
And shouted its dominance at my cowardly soul.
Shrivelled in the corner of my shattered heart,
To afraid to take control.

I guess I thought that I'd finally did it,
I let myself free.
But there my body stood,
Mocking me.