Growing up, I developed an inferiority complex about the way I looked due to the portrayal of girls and young women in mainstream media. The incessant whiteness, thinness and idealized standards of beauty drove me to the point that I thought I was ugly because I didn’t look like those girls on tv. This poem comes from that 12-year-old who was not confident and unsure of who she was and what she wanted, to being the confident 20-year-old I am today who knows exactly who she is and what she wants.
I always thought I was flawed
I always thought something was imperfect about me
But I wanted to be perfect
I wanted to be flawless
Yet I never could be
They had eyes blue as the ocean
Their skin porcelain white
They always looked so happy
They always looked so bright
I couldn’t tell if they were real
Or dolls made out rubber
I couldn’t tell if they were cruel
Or nothing more than flubber
I struggled to find
The reason why I looked so odd
Why I couldn’t find myself
In their paper bod
I hated myself then
For not being perfect like them
But now I’ve grown
And I realise
It’s not all
My features were never perfect
Because nobody’s are
My body was never flawless
Because nobody’s is
When the lines on my own hands
Aren’t the same as anyone else
Then how could any two of us be
There’s just so much more to me
To us
We’re stars in a colossal galaxy
We make our purpose
And it is not to fit in
It was
Is
And always will be
To stand out
Yet my childlike mind still wonders
It still ponders
They don’t look like me
They never looked like me
I know now
They never will
And they never should
