Straighten your back, girl
Stand up, molded into their prodding expectations
Crack neck
Crick, crick
Prison face
Prison cell:

Pick apart the pieces of your face
Like glass, ready to shatter
Tears stain it like windows
Peering into my own loneliness;

And so, the reaping begins.

Eyebrows, too thick
Hair, too thin
Scars, too many
Must cover
Color, not enough
Must fake

Brutal fat jokes are the dagger in my spine
Painting me red and black and blue:

"Fat girl's so fat she..."
"Fat girl's momma's so fat she..."
"Fat girl's whole family's so fat
I wonder where she gets it's from."

My genes were always one size too large
And everybody could tell
No matter how much I tried to make myself up
My family history was engraved in my love handles;

Even the biting words of fifth graders could serve as a poignant reminder
That no matter how much you can do to curb your appetite
You can't curb where you come from.

I always wonder why it feels
Like looking through my own eyes
At someone else's life.

Although,
That life fails to address
How much fatter her ******* mouth is
It could swallow the sea if her family whole
We all want to be a mouth
Or become absorbed by one:

And though some may say
It'll turn her up dead
She says it makes her
Dead ****.