“I love her smile. I love her hair. I love her knees. I love how she licks her lips before she talks. I love her heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. I love it when she sleeps.”
I feel like I’m in the wrong world because I don’t belong in the world where we don’t end up together. There are parallel universes out there where this didn’t happen. Where I was with you and you were with me. And whatever universe that is, that’s the one that my heart lives in.
So this is my spoken word poem about self harm and depression. I have shown this to only a handful of people so I hope you all like it. This poem means the world to me. Please dont be a jerk and steal it or something. Enjoy xx p.s. my face looks funny most of the time, Im aware xD
Everyone needs to see this I love it so much. I’m so proud of you for finally posting it.
my name is BABY and you lean out of your car and spit at my feet it lands in a puddle in front of me and i am thirteen and in a suburban neighborhood on the way home from school and i gag and run with my backpack banging like the echo of your words against my back like you are chasing me all the way home
my name is SWEETIE and i am fifteen in the city with my friends for the first time and we get a little lost and you follow us for a full block you name my friends HONEY and DARLING and WHY THE FUCK WON’T YOU TALK TO ME
my name is NICE ASS and it’s two in the afternoon and i still feel my heart slam against my ribs because i am under a hundred and fifty pounds and i have weak lungs and weaker fists and while you saunter down the steps, swinging the beer bottle in your fist, my father who is walking behind me shouts, “she’s seventeen, you dipshit” and maybe i’m near my family but i don’t feel safe until we’re home again
my name is JAILBAIT and my friend is laughing and we just graduated high school and we feel like we are on the brink of something beautiful and terrifying and she is in heels and about to throw up and you name her DRUNK ENOUGH and i have to physically drag you off and when we go home she cries for four hours because a night that should have been just teenage fun almost resulted in the end of her trust of humans
my name is LOOK AT THOSE TITS and we are on a college campus and the boy i am with holds onto my waist just a little tighter while you drive up next to me. you name him THUG and throw a bottle at his forehead. i can’t stop shaking until long after it’s over. he says “it happens,” and i say, “it shouldn’t.”
my name is DAMN GIRL and we are walking down the street. there are ten of you and two of us and you snap a picture when you think we’re not looking. you tell us to either come inside or you’ll fuck us on the street. you all laugh like this is funny. this is compliment. this is just something boys do to get ladies.
my name is LITTLE LADY, my name is FINE MISS, my name is FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR FRIENDS, my name is LOOK ME IN THE FACE, my name is STOP FROWNING, my name is SMILE, my name is WHY DID YOU EVEN GLANCE AT HIM YOU WERE ASKING FOR IT, my name is THIS IS A COMPLIMENT so i looked it up according to Oxford that’s “a polite expression of praise or admiration” i think you’ve got the definitions mixed up
my name is PRETTY THING, my name takes nice words and make them into bullet wounds my name is NICE BODY and no girl i know has dated a man who catcalled her, my name is GREAT RACK and it turns out that if you shout things at a stranger, they sound like knives more than flowers, my name is WOMEN LIKE YOU NEVER KNOW THEIR PLACE and every single “nice” thing you say to a woman is something you’d never utter to another man because you know that it’s derogatory, my name is PRINCESS and A REASON TO GET PUT IN PRISON and if another man spoke to your mother sister girlfriend like that, you’d kill him
my name is SEXY and every time i hear someone raising their voice i am thirteen again and i don’t know who you are and i’m running home with a weight on my shoulders and your words like a slap to my spine and your laughter like a hanging, i am scared and alone and suddenly so small,
and compliments are supposed to make me feel good not afraid for my life, compliments are a way of saying “i care and i appreciate you and i thought you should know it,” and if you really meant it as a compliment, you’d care about how i would take it - but you don’t mean it like that, you mean it to show off, you mean it to make us object, you mean it to shove our names into your back pocket so you can tell your friends “i saw the HOTTEST LITTLE THING yesterday” and they can groan about how we just walked away because you don’t see us go home with keys in our fists and all the lights on and we keep 911 dialed just in case and we triple-check our locks and we don’t fall asleep at all because your compliment knocked us over and took who we are
if we are all saying “it doesn’t sound like a compliment, it sounds like a threat,” if you really wanted to make us feel good - wouldn’t you stop doing it?
The
first time I remember being disgusted with myself was when I was seven
years old. I was very well familiarized with my mother’s repulsion of
fat/overweight people of any kind. As she was walking past me, I
pulled up my shirt, exposing my tummy, while sucking in so hard so my
ribs were protruding. I exclaimed, “Mama, look! Look, how skinny I’m
getting!” I was grinning, panting, trying to keep my stomach sucked in,
optimistically awaiting her approval. She paused only briefly,
looking down at my exposed stomach before pinching an inch of fat
between her fingers and answering, “But this.,” pinching harder, “this is what needs to go.” Then
she walked away, while I silently cried and swore to starve until I
could please her. This pattern continued and escalated for the next 14
years. I was never slim, or skinny, as a child. There are
pictures to prove that, which I’m sure internet trolls will eventually
excavate. Aside from the constant, and continual bullying I endured
during elementary, middle, and high school concerning my weight and
appearance, I also suffered the same torture in my own home. I
hate to mark myself as a martyr, but the pain and misery I sustained
before the age of 13 supersedes what most humans experience in a
lifetime. I honestly don’t really care if any of you believe me. Aside
from growing up in a home with both parents unable of remaining sober,
or acting as parents should, I lived everyday, watching my sister slowly
die. An agonizing, prolonged, tortuous death. And I stood there, a
child, incapable of helping her. I was in the room the night her soul
left her little scarred body. I live with the guilt of not being able to
save her every single day. I won’t ramble on, but I think I’m
getting towards my point. The pain didn’t end after my sister’s demise.
If anything, in some ways, it worsened. I attempted to overcompensate
for the fact that my mother had lost her daughter, by being the best I
could be at everything. Best grades at school, won every poetry contest,
anything, to make her love me, to make up for the fact that she was
left with me, not her precious child. But I couldn’t compete with an
angel. I was raised, and trained to hate myself. Every day, I was
reminded of how grotesque I was. How I wasn’t pretty enough, wasn’t
skinny enough, my hair wasn’t long enough, my skin, glasses, braces.. I
was not good enough, for anything. I was not worthy of anything,
including my own mother’s acceptance, and love. I wasn’t worthy of
living. Not after long, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, because
every time I did, I would cry. So, like many young girls dealing
with similar issues, I ate. More, and more. And then I would hate
myself again, and starve, but never for long. I didn’t have the will
power to covet anorexia. So I was always big, or bigger. I always had
big thighs, a big ass, I was always just big. And I always just hated
myself. That’s the way it was. But I aged, grew up, got the fuck
out of that house, and with the help of my own music, i gained the
amount of confidence it took to see myself as I really was. My path to
self-confidence and self-love was long, and it continues on daily. When I
first started gaining clout, I would edit my photos to make my butt
look smaller, my thighs slimmer, because my old, brainwashed way of
thinking still remained. To this day, I still sometimes look in the
mirror expecting to see a monster… Recently, I have felt that I
have come the closest to loving myself fully and completely, exactly as
I am. Which is what prompted my Instagram post and caption. (see post
below)
Now,
internet trolls and blogs dug up photos from years ago. One, in
particular, was an arranged photoshoot organized by my old label, who
edited the photos to make my ass considerably smaller, along with the
rest of my body (see post below).
This
was also one of the main reasons I left this label. Because they
couldn’t accept me as I was, and were constantly trying to make me into
someone I wasn’t. I have come out and said publicly, I used to
edit my photos to make myself look slimmer, because the pressure from my
label and social media forced me to believe that I still wasn’t good
enough. And now, I am strong enough to stand up and say, fuck everyone.
This is my body. My thighs still don’t fit into AG jeans. I will never
be the thin, model-type my mother always wanted of me. I don’t fit the
mold, and I don’t believe I ever will. All I can do is say my truth. But it will never be enough for those who revel in evil, and hatred, and depravity. Those who trained me to hate myself back when I was just a child…they still exist, and they will remain. But we can be stronger, we can prevail. Love exactly who you are..because you are all you have.
