Skin: A Poem About Body Image

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In this free form poem, Writers’ Club member Natalia writes about the pressure to constantly be body positive and the impact it can have on body image. Written in two views - a young person with a body neutrality mentality, and a social media influencer with an always on, body positivity mentality - the poem looks at taking time to accept and admit to yourself that some days will be better than others when it comes to body image, and every journey is different.

SKIN

7:25am. 
I really ought to get up now.
Laboured groans of my alarm clock ricochet off of closed walls 
as today reaches in through the gap in the curtains.
I pull out my phone, the same Instagram page is open 
from last night when I vowed to start loving myself:  
‘5am productive morning routine.’
She wakes up and stretches and tells herself she is beautiful, she is powerful.
She feels comfortable in skin-tight leggings
and full on avocado toast, overnight oats and
‘hot girl summer’ hashtags that ooze into every corner of
her feed – images eating away
At me, I wish that could be me.
The smell of burnt toast follows me up the stairs,
messy floor, messy hair, 
but she says: “it’s not messy”, you must feel good about your natural curls all of the time.”
She says “you’re not fat, you’re beautiful” to one 
and “are you sure you’re eating” 
to me through the screen.
She says body positivity is power
and it is really, 
She says it is healthy to commit to loving myself every day
and so, I turn to face myself,
to tell myself
“I….” 

The mirror swallows me whole and now I am  
confronted with unadorned tissue and 
skin: 
the casing that has been my companion since birth,
humble and blotted with blemishes I can’t count 
because I would run out 
of fingers and toes halfway through. 
Moles mottled across reddened cheeks, 
stretch marks, peach fuzz legs and acne scars.
Multi-coloured, melting pigments drawing patterns across
birthmarks and cellulite and 
freckles dappled under blistered skin.
These blemishes are what make me so strikingly myself,
but I can see them all staring back at me

and I do not feel beautiful. 
She says I should not call these ‘imperfections’, instead 
spots of beauty that make me unique
but some days it is hard
to love myself unconditionally
when society is enveloped in double standards 
and dichotomies.
So, I bury the real me 
beneath 
layers of plaster and contour and pretend puppet giggles. 

Oh, how much the skin endures. 

I peel away parts of me and stitch up this patchwork 
with pieces of someone else
She tells me that if I tell myself I am beautiful every day 
I will start to believe it 
But the truth is, we are strangers, 
like two ships passing in the night, 
Yes, body positivity equips and empowers
but this constant pressure to feel confident 
and gorgeous every time you look in the mirror 
is poisonous because
now it has gone too far the other way: 
her appearance becomes her worth and
positivity becomes choosy, selective.
She is not real.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
why do we break so much to be the fairest of them all? 
When these scars on skin 
paint pictures of places we have been 
and battles braved within,
like the disability they fight constantly
or the pain he has learnt to live in. 
This body is just the cover to a book still being written where  
imperfection is powerful because
these marks draw maps
of what I have grown to be.
I don’t always feel beautiful 
but my body, 
as damaged or seemingly ‘imperfect’ it may be, 
is a vessel that can create 
beautiful things
It is only part of me, 

It is not the thing that gives me substance.