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All along I hid my face, my arms, my thighs and all too well my gut.
Because in this modern day,
The bigger your gut was the
Less You're able to still enjoy yourself. Let alone another human being.

From grade five
The girls learn that boys
Only like the pretty things in life.
Pretty eyes, pretty nose, pretty hair, and pretty smiles.

In grade six
Girls pick up sticks and stones while they break their bones all for a sense of acceptance of a few classmates.

In grade seven
When they tell you your pretty "isn't pretty enough"
You learn how to hide.

In grade eighth
You tuck in your gut, you fake a smile, and continue to glare at the girls
Who just always seem to get the time of day.
When you go home and stare into the mirror and start to count. You count for the days to come , were your smile is just right. Your clothes seem to fall perfectly. When the cute guy saves you a seat.
You count and wait to be perfect.

But the thing about perfection is
No body is.

it's taken me this long

Grade twelve.

To figure that out.
I used to hate myself but now I'm just finding out that it's alright to not be alright.
gray rain Apr 2016
Put gasoline on my dreams
enough to make me want to scream
light my heart, set it aflame
but I will never feel the shame,
the hate you think I'm under
for what, that I wonder
Lianna Walters Sep 2015
I may not have the privilege of support from all sides,
But I know who I am.
Maybe it hasn’t exactly surfaced,
And I admit,
There have been some times where I wondered if it’s right,
But how can finally being sure of yourself be wrong?
Yes,
I struggle with self-image
And self-acceptance
My mom looking me in the eye and telling me I can’t be sure,
Or listening to my dad lecture my sister about how it’s
Adam and Eve,
Not Eve and Amy
Doesn’t exactly help,
But in a place and a society where being yourself is only acceptable
Sometimes
If at all,
Having even a little bit of pride
Can be the difference between
Saying “***** it” and being yourself
And deciding pleasing others is more important than your own happiness
But I’m done letting others decide what’s best for me
When I’m clearly already drowning in expectations
So here goes;
I’m pansexual and **** proud
Take it or leave it,
But I'm not gonna change for anybody.
We were supposed to write a poem for Seminars class about who we are...what do you guys think?
Cíara McNamara Apr 2015
All I have is skin,
I am missing the tobacco and filter
which you desperately need.

You can't make a rollie
and have a decent smoke
with just skins

Why do I only have the component
that everybody else has?
Just be real friend.
Be who you are,
and where you are at.
That's enough,
and it's the only way
forward.

Most of us have put on enough masks
in our life time,
to have completely forgotten
our original face.

We've become far too clad
with the heavy coats of expectation,
suffocating under the weight
of the ways we think we ought to be.

You can drop that garb.

There's always mystery
at the naked core of who you are,
and that's just fine.

It's not that we must rediscover
some definable self,
and hand that image over
for validation.
Rather, those solid definitions we
cart around with us
are heavy enough as it is,
but we've continued pushing them
despite the distress.

We've gotten so used
to that awkward play
of needing to be a somebody,
as if that somebody
were other than
who we already are.

We've forgotten how to let go
with all the spontaneity
of a flowers growth;
forgotten the beauty
of our own personal bloom.
That we are a fluid sweep
of light and dark.
That our faces,
like the moons,
wax and wane.

You don't have to be any which way,
other than the way you are.
That sort of self acceptance
is the innate flourish,
is the fluid self cycle,
is the way back into life.

Don't fool yourself
into believing
there is a better disguise.
Strip down to the bare beauty
of your authentic state
in this moment,
and move from there.

— The End —