The realities of filtering my feelings

Location

Hi everyone, my name is Elena Moya I am a sophomore at University of New Mexico

And I am applying for the #NOFILTER SCHOLARSHIP SLAM. Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it

Today I have entitled my poem, "The realities of filtering my feelings."

So here is my Poem. I hope you enjoy it.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I never understood what beauty was.

I never wanted to be pretty.

It was TOO hard.

I refused to believe that it was the only important thing about life.

That the picture doesn’t count unless it has a filter.

Ha, a so called beauty enhancer-

That the filter is useless unless the final scent it leaves is sweet.

I was the outcast in a world that was infatuated with beauty.

That their words were medal disks.

And that when they were thrown at just the right angle,

They severed my shins.

And dropped me to my knees on the cold, cold tile of my bathroom floor.

So I threw up my hands, and my chin and tilted it to the ceiling.

Like heaven, where are you?

God and the angels with the brigade of Sunday choirs burst through and tell me in song that.

I am beautiful.

But they didn’t.

I couldn't hide society had made my mind a prisoner.

I was being a little dramatic, I have to admit.

Your picture without a filter was supposed to suck, right?

No.

That’s why I saw my likes as gold.

I measured them as treasure.

Like it was why I knew that even if I had no filter, you wouldn’t even see me.

1 like a picture is far too little -

But dam I wanted them to see.

Give them glasses, so they could see my face as if I actually was photos shopped.

It is why my face was a competition-

And the more I altered a picture, the greater the trophy.

And I look nothing like my pictures.

Oh how I wish, I those filters with me everything I went.

But this is not the society I know.

This world of voices echoed confined in my skull

An agenizing sight…

More cluttered than if you tried to map all the stars on an index card.

And boy let me tell you, I tried to do so.

With every like I gained handfuls of star dust,

And I sprinkled them so delicately-

They would fall into place and the voices would stop.

Control at last.

Pieces together something like Orion.

Control that lead to filter after filter, photo after photo.

Likes marked their admiration of the veil over my face.

And I guess I could say, I had to take it like a compliment.

But, I felt like the breaded lady that they put in the freak shows and the side of the road.

When they put their judgmental figures to double tap their screen.

It was never beauty that slithered through my veins - infiltrating my thoughts.

Society didn't want to force me into altering my face with surgery.

So they accepted me with an altered photo.

The problem was myself, the lack of peace within my mind.

I clinched my manicured nails and I bit my lips.

But, I'll go head and take it all back now.

I’ll say, "Use a filter yourself!"

And for your information, I would not continue to use them.

And I think I was trying to sing when I cried,

"I am beautiful"

I am more than deceptive beauty.

I can't even say it without a problem.

Ill trade my filter for "bad bitch."

I’ll go head and go to bed in curlers and lip gloss,

Just to look beautiful in my sleep.

I will not drink your tea, because I will never host.

That is a "black and white" job.

A woman in my skin is more than ornament.

A woman in my skin must know that queen means work.

Means not getting invited to the party.

Embarrassing my beauty means embarrassing my power.

I am not the villain.

I will not constantly chew up my pictures,

So when they leave my mouth they will be easy on the eyes.

Do NOT get accustomed to the idea of me.

Before I am Filtered, I am simply myself.

My Valencia filter shouldn’t have to surrender to you.

My body will becomes my weapon.

My Skelton will always speak first.

To be a girl whose struggle could never be to your type pretty?

It's to be the girl who is finding a filter that will never look good on her,

Because it was never made for her.

It’s time to be un-edited on my own.

Filters aren't for photos anymore-

And it never was.

Its being uncut.

It’s time we all drink from same tea,

Digesting it may be a little different.

And creating honey for honesty.

Beauty….

Is myself reading this poem without a filter.