Attention
Something that I have craved for so long
Attention
Something that I no longer want
Attention
I have learned from the past and need to share
I am no longer a child and can see a future ahead of me
A universal problem that yet feels so personal
I kept thinking inside my own little bubble
Burst, I can see clearly all that has happened to me
“My body is a temple”
Yet so many have walked in and tore it down
I have had to rebuild it so many times now
Hands on my skin
Yet they don’t know me
I thought they really knew me
Yet no one knows the real me
The real me
The real me
The real me
The real me that was afraid of being judged
Judged by the numbers
The number of past boyfriends
The number of hands that have touched me
The number that appears on the scale
The number the tape reads around my chest, hips, and waist
I thought these numbers defined me
The numbers I collected growing up
The numbers I have been ashamed of
How did I collect these numbers?
I am sorry Mom, for not knowing better
I am sorry to myself, for not treating myself better
But I didn’t know any better
I wasn’t taught any better
The real me knows more now
The real me is scared of letting myself down
The real me is finally shedding the touch of past hands on me
The real me is scared of losing myself to what I am supposed to me
The real me is finally taking care of her menstrual cycle
The real me is scared of the lack of freedom that could surround my body
The real me is finally learning about her true sexuality at twenty
I am more than what I was
I am more than the fourteen-year-old who laughed off sexist jokes to make myself look better for boys
I am more than the fifteen-year-old who would smile off cat-calling because they were “compliments”
I am more than the sixteen-year-old who let her boyfriend touch her because “that's what love is”
Twenty
Twenty years later and I am finally free
Free from the society that made me believe my body defines my beauty
Free because I know now
My mind is what is beautiful
Looking back to my younger self, I allowed myself to be taken advantage of. All because I wasn’t my biggest advocate. I did not see myself as a “pretty girl” and needed validation from boys. Boys who did not have my best interests at heart. Because of that, they, in turn, hurt me and I hurt myself. I have fallen victim to boys who have seen me as just a body for them to discover and touch. That doesn’t however, make me a victim. I cannot stand and imagine this cycle continuing for younger generations of girls because they aren’t “the pretty girls”. Beauty is more than what we have been taught. Beauty is more than what we see in the mirror.
