Hand me a razor and I will hack away at myself,
Until it's not me that's left,
But another faceless, vulnerable canvas
And I will leave the skins I have shed lying in my wake,
All for the sake of acceptance.

I give you my autonomy,  and in return you bombard me with images,
All of the same, dull, blank piece of moulding clay.

"Muscle is weight and weight is fat, lose it" and I try,
Holding desperately to the pieces me I have left.
And she tries harder still,  and her health drains from her blood, until you tell her she has gone too far: "this is not beautiful"
And with that, you shatter her world: you taught her that's all there is to care about.

Show me a picture I ask of you,
and you show me a porcelain statue
"Bone is heavy and hard to touch. Where have the curves gone?"
And so she looks down at her body,  shrinking in to herself,  ashamed of who she was born.

Play me a song, I ask again,
But you show me yet more bodies.
More faceless aspirations you know I can't reach.
"Conform, conform, conform" you order,  and I do.
You pull from my tight clasp the last few parts I have of myself,
Remove all with which I was brought into your world,  and you show me a doll.

You cut, stick, sew and glue until she is no longer real. You cover her imperfections with paint until she is no longer recognisable.
You dress her in clothes too tight to be comfortable, in shoes too impractical to walk,
and then you throw her into the lion's den,
As she has to fight her way out much harder than any of you were made to.
You make her fight until her soul has left, and she will never be the person her mother made.
You tell me that this is adulthood, that she is a woman,
But you have taken the human out of her, and you have kept her corpse as a trophy.

This is a man's world, but I will not back down.