"dysmorphic" poems
You know why I'm obsessed with makeup?
You know why I literally BREAK. DOWN. when I see myself in the mirror on one of those REALLY ugly days that I have?
You know why I seem f!cking vain and beauty obsessed and attention seeking because of how self-deprecating I am?
You know why I am currently crying...alone...on my bedroom floor...kind of pathetically?
Because now I'm a little bit scared
That maybe I DO have a disease of the mind
Maybe I DO have something in my head that isn't right
It just seems so impossible
Because I mean
I look in the mirror
And all I see is this hideous shameful beastly girl
So ugly
In fact, I genuinely feel terrible for the people who have to look at me
and I don't know why
I just don't see how anybody could ever possibly think that I am pretty
And for some reasons I'm crying right now
And I feel really alone
But no no no
There is no way I really have dysmorphia
Is there?
I feel embarrassed
Like I come across shallow
And stupid
And makeup obsessed
Because I can't ever see myself as pretty
NOT EVEN ONCE
not even decent
Not even reasonable
I just. see. UGLY.
and ashamed of my face,
And ashamed of my obsession
With cosmetics
Because it is like the only medicine they made
To fix this affliction
Makeup can make up for how ugly I am
maybe it can fix me
maybe I won't hate myself anymore
but it never does
and I hate crying alone!
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 11:16 PM UTC
Gloria, latex snap. Opaque lipstick.
I should press holiday stamps
over those big blue eyes of yours.
Misspelled spoken word, whole hunting
from malignant orange ,
crosshairs and et cetera.
*** on me - stellar hardwood floor ;
the last unicorn was a battered woman
with certain dysmorphic symptoms.
My boyfriend thinks it's **** when
i read the dsm v the way i eat jello shots.
Still, I don't **** him how I would the
surrealish ***** in a polyester uniform.
He knows there's been a cowboy in a parka on the corner for days
politely asking about the three legged race. I have no answers for him
or his handsome eagle co-defendant.
I really think
I'll marry my best friend for her
enameled heart and health insurance.
I took my multivitamin , tapping out
morse on old formica ,
while telling my dead dog im sorry for
letting them **** him.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 10:06 AM UTC
Wake up
Look in mirror
fat
Take off clothes
Look in mirror
why is my stomach so swollen looking??
******* hate this body*
especially my stomach
Weigh
102.3
finally
Breakfast
Strawberries
10 calories
Coffee and cream
34 calories..
too many
need energy, though
fine.
strawberries+coffee+cream= 44 calories
Weigh
102.6
**** it*
*****
Weigh
102.4
better
Go for run
burned 400 calories
Hungry
can't eat
Look in mirror
the way my fat sticks out is disgusting
Weigh
102.4
100 sit ups
burned 50 calories
200 jumping jacks
burned 70 calories
Look in mirror
why am I not thin yet
don't fade out again
Passes out
Go to doctor
Says too thin
don't lie to me
Dinner
Peach
36 calories
Energy drink
210 calories
ugh
need it desperately though
strawberries+coffee+cream+peach+energy drink= 290
Weigh
103.1
hate myself
Stare in mirror
Stare in mirror
Stare in mirror
Examine body
*****
Weigh
102.1
200 sit ups
burned 100 calories
Get dumped by boyfriend
it's probably because I'm fat
Take shower
Get out
Look in mirror
you are disgusting
Go to bed
I hate myself
REALITY
scary thin
ate too little, exercised too much
unrealistically saw herself
died two years later of a self inflicted gunshot to the head and a starved soul
note said: “I love you, but I hate myself and the fact I'll never be small enough for you”
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 11:09 PM UTC
There's a part of me,
that you have never seen,
it's large, burrowing, dysmorphic
and it tells
me that this is okay,
this is natural,
that the cold rush I feel
is the thermometer saying I'm cooling down
and that love that kept boomeranging
won't be able to reach me
because that part of me
is digging deep for the both of us.
And so,
stuck inside that soggy center
it burrows for fun and survival,
because it knows it can go as deep as it wants,
and no one will ever see it.
Nov 16, 2011
Nov 16, 2011 at 11:20 PM UTC
Sitting, restless
In this changeling
Sensation
Of freshness and renewal.
Running
Rat on a wheel.
Each passing day
A different way
Of feeling,
An altered state of mind.
Seeking
To find
A man within the boy.
Hoping to see
The real me.
Alive and kicking.
Hot flushed, this post determined puberty
And the desperate need to feel.
An urgent angst to Be.
Short fuse and temper flare.
I’m not really there
Yet still somehow
Everywhere and
Everything;
Else breathing.
Dysmorphic chest
Heaving
Exigency
In this
Juncture
Soul puncture,
And bloodied bandaids
Cast off
My heart
Once worn on my sleeve.
I am finger skin,
Flesh and nail
Torn
And jagged edges
Peeling.
Perplexity kneeling,
I am deeply lost inside of me.
Begging to be found.
Compund; unbound.
They say that beggars can’t be choosers
Only losers left to dreaming.
They also say
That I may be a dreamer
But I’m not the only one.
I will come undone in this undoing.
Eschewing
A life lived unalive.
Slow unravel
To once again
Begin
To belong in this
Skin
Stitched bleeding riches
To my bare and brittle bone
He is not alone
I feel him
Running
Waiting
Sating disquietude
With an attitude
Unshackled
He is not running
Rather feet flying
A rat inside
A wheel.
Nov 16, 2010
Nov 16, 2010 at 10:47 PM UTC
I
Originations of consciousness whir into a moan of torment.
A sudden bombshell of consternation;
her eyes burst wide.
Baby?
Sleep-laden, post-finals brain gravy:
No, can't be. Could be. Shouldn't be. Want to be? No, can't be.
Lurking beyond the reach of terror, realism slithers closer.
The hysteria deteriorates as deduction brings lucidity.
******* eggs.
They are abolished, and never heard from again.
II
Suitcase tetris, smothering each layer.
She moves without direction,
or a lazy child with ADD.
At long last, the shimmering sink full of death beckons...
Dissatisfaction erupts in a symphony of fragmented drinkware.
Her assumption lingers, cresting into prediction.
Her expectations are met.
A thorn in her paw.
The dishwater weeps.
III
Her rage is tangible, hissing in her ears,
bashing her skull when it is ignored,
clawing at her spine.
She abandons the silverware.
They never did anything for her.
The loathsome bag swings threateningly.
She ignores it, giving it a silent challenge.
Fate strings before her eyes, yanked taut and thrumming
with inevitability.
Crimson satin sheets tangle lovingly from the rift of tender peel.
Cake-batter-in-a-mixing-bowl splatter,
the dissimilitude of children's laughter.
Wobbling, fawn-like under the density of rage gnawing at her lips,
she retreats, acknowledging her submission.
She begins as a tree, but rapidly degenerates
into grotesque dysmorphic spasms on the cheap veneer.
Hysteria threatens to burst forth, frothing, but no.
This is not my day.
Sep 27, 2012
Sep 27, 2012 at 4:47 AM UTC
bitten nails, broken skin
i speak volumes through a pen
the unkempt look of a tired teen
emotionally broken writing queen
i write melodies for the youth
the ones who know the ugly truth
and after all is said and done
i speak for the ones who stand alone
i write for the ones who stay in their rooms
who have inner horror of the imminent doom
of facing the decision to live or to die
i speak for the ones who silently cry
i write for the broken primadonnas
who realize all they really wanted
was a beautiful body (thin as a stick)
i write for the sweethearts, lovely, dysmorphic
i write melodies for the hated
the ignored, defeated, self-harming, tormented
the unloved darlings of this generation
oppressed by society’s views of perfection
the unwanted lovechild of sadness and hate
we feel in our hearts that we all are mistakes
i write for every last tired young soul
for i write as i speak
and i speak what i know.
Sep 3, 2013
Sep 3, 2013 at 9:41 PM UTC
manic episodes
social phobia
PTSD
generalized anxiety disorder
hyperactive ****** desire disorder
bulimia nervosa
body dysmorphic disorder
Thanks doc for the diagnosis
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 12:03 AM UTC
What can be more painful than a raging soul?
A body full of scars
A body drowned in suffering;
Dysmorphic image of a broken soul
So thin ,so close to nothing ,
So broken ,so close to sorrow
In pain, the body lies
The inked image of this broken heart.
Write poems not scars in thy skin,
Scripted history, the body is your friend.
Feb 19, 2017
Feb 19, 2017 at 8:23 AM UTC
This useless meat sack. I am the thing watching behind the eyes of this empty meat sack. I am the one piloting this sausage of a body, directing it to walk, talk, smile.
Sometimes I wish that I could reach into my chest and tear it open. I want to rip and tear and slice past the epidermis, watch the white fatty cells and veins and arteries moving. I want to see white, bone-white, a cage for my useless heart. Watch my heart pump like those sheep hearts we used to dissect in science. I remember how they looked, white fat clinging like ivy, and greying in the cool room of the labs. Nothing but a cold, clammy lump of flesh. Maybe death smells like the butchers. Like bleach that can’t cover the festering smell of rot and ammonia.
I’m heavy on my ankles. I remember the last time I starved, and I felt as if I could fly, balanced on my tip-toes, poised to fall. And maybe falling felt just as good.
It’s so unbearably soft. My chest, my arms. I can feel my cheek meat. Fat on bones. Scrape it out with a spoon like pork cheeks, soft, tender, delicious.
A chrysalis. A cut-out, a hollow man wearing hollow shoes doing hollow things. How did that pupa feel, I wonder, trapped in darkness? No way out but forward. The growing pains, tendons and bones and muscles warping. Twisting and crawling but transforming, little by little. Into what, you can’t possibly imagine. The uncertainty, it’s almost as bad as the darkness. No change even when you open your eyes, like colours have frozen into little dizzying pixels. You can’t stop, but do you want to? On the precipice between weakness and a terrifying something else, what can you be but monstrous? Not one or the other but neither.
What are you turning into? A butterfly? A monster? Neither?
You can’t stop.
Dec 30, 2021
Dec 30, 2021 at 2:39 AM UTC
The rabble simmered to a distant dull din
muffled by thick wooden doors and hands clamped over ears.
Wanting deafness rather than to hear again
the laughter accompanied by his name spoken ugly as sin.
But who can mute memories or what screams from within?
Wilting for another night
wishing a dream would birth
enough light,
praying
to believe he could face the world
head held high,
no stoop to stop confidence
nor twist of frown to drown positive assurances.
just enough would be enough for him
if he could walk the way
the beautiful do.
Just the way they do.
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 3:52 PM UTC
I look at all the boney people.
I look at all the boney people.
Ellanor Twigby
Picks up the rice in the church where her wedding has been;
Lives in a dream.
Waits at the window,
Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door.
Who is it for?
All the boney people, where do they all come from?
All the boney people, where do they all belong?
Jenny McCraigsie
Writing the words of a sermon that thick ones will fear;
Don't have a beer!.
Look at her schlocking,
Selling snake oil to lonely dysmorphic out there.
What does she care?
All the boney people, where do they all come from?
All the boney people, where do they all belong?
I look at all the boney people.
I look at all the boney people.
Ellanor Twigby
Died in the church and was buried alone with her name.
Nobody came.
Jenny McCraigsie
Counting her cash with her hands as she walks from her grave.
One less drone slave.
All the boney people, where do they all come from?
All the boney people, where do they all belong?
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 6:22 AM UTC
I was born from a storm
destructed from flesh to bone
beautifully perched in a cloak
in arbitrary, it was a dysmorphic view.
_"How have I morphed into this?"_
And all the skeletons in my closet seem like a myth hanging around in a locket, I gave you a thing where I put my little heart into it. I've gained in my drastic, obnoxious change.
Sep 19, 2024
Sep 19, 2024 at 12:01 PM UTC
can’t speak about you in words but
in the heaviness of trees on unrelated stones
or all the things I didn’t chew
the worm of history froze silent
no axis mundi in my blood but
dysmorphic dreams
your rancid placenta
I can’t speak while
you spin around on streets smelling of flesh
and the layers of time squeeze all the screams of me
mother: the furthest language
Feb 17, 2016
Feb 17, 2016 at 2:11 PM UTC
Colonial history will still dictate how the men around here
Practice love through hate
For aesthetic purposes; an ethnic marker,
Gender controlled by husband...son...father
Against my will.
I can let nature take its course, the uneasiness in how I pass
Bears nothing to your immoral force with which you open me up.
Your gateway to a selfish pleasure,
And I once believed that being loved
Was close to being treasured.
I am as trapped as a bird in a cage,
Modified and made ugly by your commission.
Disfigured by tradition and religion and holy wars,
And chained by the fear that renders me yours
Against my will.
My sisterhood grows from northeast Africa
To the sub-Sahara.
Young and joyless and bound by doctrines.
No pursuit of happiness. No pleasure to come
No great expectations. Nothing foretold
Nothing that has been or gone.
Objects more of control than desire;
My eyes that once shone with innocent love
Now burn with hate fuelled fire…and all because...
You denied me a fall from grace, you denied me self discovery,
No different to putting scars on my face
Or is that too much a public recovery?
You denied me womanhood, you denied me choice.
I censor my thoughts and silence my voice
And I think of our mothers and their mothers
And of the honour and pride they felt
When this exact same fate to them was dealt.
And why did they not feel humiliated? Abused?
Mutilated? Used?
Maybe when we live in a world without light
We relinquish our strengths and fall prey to our plights.
Enlightenment and knowledge, I was lead to believe,
Are the roads to freedom.
Our mothers learned nothing other than to serve and to please,
And here am I, enlightened but sedated,
Imprisoned, captive, segregated.
Dysmorphic now, a victim still,
And all of this against my will.
Copyright Marc Hawkins 2013
Sep 11, 2017
Sep 11, 2017 at 2:19 AM UTC
I’ve never killed anybody, but
I may as well have
You see, I’ve spent so much time
Hating
So much time tearing others
To shreds that
If every callous comment was a casualty
I’d be the world’s most successful serial killer
Although, I guess it’s not just me
No
It’s every single teenage girl in existence
It’s every inferiority complex
Every dysmorphic body
Every ounce of self-hatred
In the nation
Wrapped into one
Spewing gossip and resentment like Diet Coke-infused lava
I’ve never killed anybody, but
I sure have wounded some people’s pride
Fueled their ego-scalding tears at night
Just to protect me and stop mine
Like somehow that makes it right
I’ve never wanted to be a bully, but
Sometimes
It’s **** or die
Jan 27, 2020
Jan 27, 2020 at 10:36 PM UTC
The reflection in the mirror
returns me a known and tired smile,
the dried-up hair barely catching the light,
and those brown eyes sinking like holes in the ground.
Who could love that face?
With its bland features,
its coarse skin and bent nose.
A pyrrhic beard and that weak chin.
And what about those arms, huh?
Long and thin like church candles,
but with no flare.
Not much of a chest either,
there are gravestones with more bulk,
and people are far happier to see them too.
But above all it's the barrenness that scares me,
the sinkholes run deep and the candles cold,
and the gravestones go down to the foundations of the world.
The reflection in the mirror returns me.
Nothing
Jun 5, 2022
Jun 5, 2022 at 12:19 AM UTC
Looking out over the city night entices me to shudder my eyes which otherwise would feel the thousand piercing needles of endless light.
Bathed in darkness I feel whole. A dark armor against the ********** of the all consuming nothingness.
The bleak abatement of perception withholding the inner workings of natural thought replaced by extraneous rhetoric.
The dark star shines in spite of the sinful rain and jet black flowers bloom from barren earth where dreams have died.
A blood stained sky looms in regret and longing over the scarred eye of the world.
This flood of tears casts a dysmorphic shadow on the horizon.
Immutable darkness holds it's breath as an ephemeral light chases shadows once again across the earth.
Oct 14, 2017
Oct 14, 2017 at 5:09 PM UTC
Dysmorphic
Whenever I see the word “noon”
I sit and I stare at it.
Logically, I know that it’s spelt right,
But the perfect palindromous parallel
Just looks wrong.
Sometimes in band, I hear a sound
And it’s just not right.
Logically, I know that it’s fine,
But the slight tremor torturing the technique
Just sounds wrong.
Sometimes I see myself in the mirror
And I don’t recognize me.
Logically, I know the body I see is me,
But the soul inside is suffocatingly stifled,
And I feel wrong.
Jun 17, 2018
Jun 17, 2018 at 10:34 AM UTC
My entire adult life spent through selfies adorned with false smiles, vanity portraying the "best version" of myself.
My own body delusions still presented without filter, although masked.
Raw, vulnerable photographs through my weakest moments, tear strings, pink cheeks and red eyes aren't something I've felt comfortable posting.
However posed my photos are, they still aren't altered.
Playing up my own dysmorphic disorder from youth yet grasping my own beauty seen as overly vain.
Early youth Ex boyfriends told me selfies were extremely narcissistic, and made me seem rampant for attention.
But does a girl who has such little following still seek approval of others when they don't like photos?
I'm not sure.
My instagram feed is dull.
It's not uniform or beautifully choreographed.
I often hide photos, as I too enjoy hiding myself from time to time.
I intended on leaving an imprint of all these useless photos I've taken over the last decade. Physically I no longer share similar traits to younger versions of myself, though mentally I've changed overall time and time again. People have called me iron-clad, the strongest person they know.
But am I?
My body embellished with secrets of a personality I used to be too afraid of showing men until this fall.
How many basic accommodations I've missed out on, how my body soaks up the granules of this love.
My being is a season, wise in my own way and mystic in terms of value.
Windows beaming with warm midday sunlight, and crispy fall mornings.
Evolving rituals, moonglow and warmth. Certain darkness like still plotted night skies. Teetering vulnerability, and overstuffed closet.
Days less spent pining over lost dysfunction, and moreover trying to figure out who I have become.
Perceived destruction of oneself versus proverbial Phoenix reconditioning.
Warrior ignite.
This winter's met with welcomed warmth though grazed heartache and sadness.
Dec 27, 2019
Dec 27, 2019 at 2:32 AM UTC
I long to be ever present
Leaving an iredescent trail
Of hope
passing time with self reflection
Apathetic idealisms
Lived, having longed for grandeur
Died, having harbored resentment
A day passes with mediocre happiness
A night dawns with dysmorphic sadness
Lay with me from dusk till early morning bleakness
Find me alone and cold
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 11:46 AM UTC
The frustrated poet runs his fingers through his hair,
then strikes the last word of his final verse in despair
Across town, a painter incinerates a wooden facade of a steeple
For the existential artist, hell is truly other people
But the sculptor who whittles his work with a knife
Is solely the one who values his life
For he understands that the process of creation,
Does not rest within pre-calculation
Aug 29, 2017
Aug 29, 2017 at 8:22 PM UTC