A small needful fact Is that 98% of women Do not look like fashion models. 100% of American children Are being lied to everyday Told they are not normal Told there is something wrong with them. Another needful fact: More than two million women More than eight hundred thousand men Are bulimic Add, subtract, multiply, divide Any way you try to solve the problem It still exists like a parasite. If any girl, boy, child, man, woman Wants to escape these images Running with cupped ears in the other direction Hoping to save themselves It follows them, rank with the smell of sewage It is the ghost in the closet Television set Store aisle Telling them they are not good enough They cannot escape the lies so dense Even their inner most breath Is hot with deception And so, even the most basic function of breathing Becomes challenging. Until we replace poison with water Brokenness with holiness Lies with truthfulness These seemingly sorrowful statistics Will never quite add up.
A special thanks to Ross Gay for his poem "A Small Needful Fact" and to Megan Falley for using it as a prompt.