Don’t stare at my hips and thighs, my lips, my neck, with accusations in your eyes
Don’t think your looks will make me cry
and die inside and want to hide
and fly on by mall-aisle five
I don’t need your “pretty”
your “lovely” and “sweet” and “sunny”
your everchanging view that my body is
“acceptable enough”

I make the cut
you hear, you mirror?
I am good enough so don’t look me up and look me down
and somehow think your answer’s sound
or right or true or perfect or clean
Don’t get ideas that all I am
is just a pet project
a sad little hobbit
a pathetic brace-face,
nursery rhyme sob story
Don’t tell me you can solve and fix
and primp and pamper and snip and nix
those flaws away with Maybelline, Almay, Covergirl, and Olay
Don’t tell me to cram my ass in jeggings
or size zero leggings
like you know everything
like you have it all
together

Don’t give me your pennies
I’m not taking spare change
I can change
my own “plain jane” self
Don’t give me self-help
books and some makeover testimony
no I make my own destiny
I don’t need to rest
and take it easy
I am strong
and wild
I am young
and free
Don’t hold me down,
no don’t frown at me,
size me up mentally,
give me some rich-girl, overpriced, diamond-encrusted crown
like that’s what I’m missing, like that’ll make me whole
No, I’m my own soul,
I’ll take control, I’m on a roll
I win the Superbowl
all by myself
no make-up needed,
like the fake-faced fashionistas
with their self-centered worlds revolving round, no not the sun,
revolving round the next line of sunglasses
oh yeah, those alien-eyed shades, yeah,
they’ll make me cool,
they’ll give me that edge, that sass, that attiTUDE
like all the magazines insist I need,
pushing at me a product, hair color, new wallet-organizer,
yeah, the kind that fits more necessities
because I’m lacking necessities
because I’m not enough,
not up to scratch, with all the right “stuff”,
not flawless, poreless, pubic hairless

Oh wait, less?
Did you just say less?
Did I hear less?
Wasn’t I just not enough?
Now I’m somehow needing less?

Give me a break, and yeah, I’ll take that kit-kat bar
Food’s never pulled one over on me
I’m that “thick, stocky, glad you’re not me” kind of girl
I don’t need to hurl or binge or fast or run
after lunch or a sub or club chicken ceasar salad with ranch dressing,
the kind with trans fat
No, I’m not stick-thin, all-limb, supermodel,
brushed to perfecshin Miss America
Beauty Queen, your Teenage Dream
Runway goddess, clothes machine
I don’t smear blue and purple and pink and green chalk on my eyelids
No I don’t use skin-tone powder and curly blonde extensions
I look just fine in my formless t-shirts,
my Red Wings, stain-covered, raggedy old sweatpants on the weekends and a baseball cap framing my hair in its sleek shiny ponytail
No I don’t use products
No I don’t wear Chanel,
Don’t tell me I’m going to hell if I don’t look good enough to get into heaven
No I won’t cook in that oven
I’m good on the inside
and outside of me too
Don’t play me for a fool
I’m telling it true

I am beautiful
and your time-money-gulping appearance
will always keep trying
and always lack a heart