You,
apple core thin, mannequin faced girl at the check out, -
You are wearing your boyfriend’s bruises again.
I wonder if you asked him to apologize afterward.
But instead he wrote it out on your skin, with black and blue ink and the thing is they don’t make a cover up strong enough to blend blue into bone and your angry yellows into ivory again.

I’m sure they tried to market it though.
“For those days when his knuckles say yes but you said no”.
Eyelids the color of ****** flowers, soft pink hues, a shade of human that you shouldn't be able to buy in a bottle –

but do.

You memorized the taste of red dye number four.
Synthetically manufactured -
Made to remember how easy growing up was,
and how default growing old has become.

Fed off a ******* diet, I’m sure you were spoon fed it.

Nurtured by nature, you started caving yourself into pieces when you learned how liquid the definition of beauty can be.

Scalding one moment,
solid still the next.
You’ve grown used to leaving bits of it behind.
Taking hot enough showers to wash away the scent of your own shame,
self loathing is meal served at the supper table.

With Mommy’s plastic surgery endeavor and Daddy  bench pressing the weight of a childhood his parents never gave him,
and you’re left home alone watching
infomercials –
every single thing that’s wrong with you – they've got something for it.
And all for the low price of your dignity on a dotted line.

Skin,
eyes,
lips,
nose,
hips,
waist,
brows,
teeth,
knees,
stomach,
feet.

Stand beneath an alter made of reflections.
Circle all the parts you are told you’re supposed to change.
Be naked.
Be nothing but stain.
Be imperfection and dishonesty, be one thousand times more cruel than candle light,
be antagonist,
be soul trapped in body, be body trapped in self,
be twenty pounds to heavy, and 100 too light.
Be you,
but not be you,
be fake,
be plastic,
be touchable,
be fuckable,

be anything except for yourself.

Hair extensions,
dye, blush,
powder,
lipstick,
corset,
bronzer.
Be nothing except product. Be sculpted from silicon, be shallow, be empty.

Be pretty.

There can’t be anything wrong with you, if you don’t exist anymore.

Selling young women the concept of hating themselves is a multimillion dollar business.
They are liars and they work on commission.
For five year old girls today there is a 0.003% chance she will become a lawyer, but a 42% chance she will wish she was thinner by time she reaches third grade.

They've left cigarette burns on the backs of your hands, Marlboro menthol lies they've scorched into your skin.  

We only call it a system because it must be broken.

It only works for them.

So do not fix yourself, girl.
Sit before a mirror and number the things you atleast don’t hate.
Repeat them when no one is listening.
Meet a boy,
who doesn't hate any of you,
who's voice is forgiveness for hating yourself.

Have a daughter and remind her not a single thing about is wrong with her.

Kiss her fingers and her toes.

Mold your paper heart into a love letter to yourself, for once.
Remember you are constellations and star dust, sunflowers and sea shells.
Do not cut pieces of yourself away, for anyone, do not lose any of you.

Do not be left overs for his hammer shaped hands to hold.
Do not let media, nor men abuse you.
Be brave like an 11 year old girl and fight back.

Lipstick and blush like war paint.

You are no small thing.  
Be earthquake weather,
be the necessities of your own disaster, but never destroy you, girl.
Nothing before this mattered.
Please,
Have an affair with yourself & write your own name at the bottom of the page.

Girl.

Love yourself shamelessly.