What a Black Sharpie Has Taught Me (Spoken Word)

I am a woman. What is a woman? Is she curvy? Is she straight? Does she make you a sandwich after work from 5-8?

Does she have nice boobs and an ass to match?

Does she know how to sweet talk you that she’s a catch?

Is she blonde? Brunette? A unique red head at that?

Green eyes, blue, brown, purple, orange, yellow, lilac?

Does she meet your requirements on the list you made?

Passive? Quiet, oppressed in the day?

Good in the sheets, good enough to be paid?

A heavy fortress towers over her

A sadness not defined

But when she looks in the mirror

It seems a little clearer

She paints the broken lines.

All over her body she starts at her muffin top

That bulges out of the way

For a magnet she is to the leeches that take a bite at her each day

So she contemplates gagging because ‘her metabolism is lagging’

So the journey to the toilet she embarks

After she’s done, the stomach has won

She looks in the mirror at once and sings

I’m so pretty… I’m so pretty and witty and bright! And I pity… any girl who isn’t me tonight…

Amazed….she’s amazed with the bones that peek through her skin getting their stardom, shining through

Amazed…amaze… A MAZE?

The journey she once embarks again.

Back to the toilet her and the demons hold hand in hand.

Pretty and witty and bright? Pretty and witty and bright? 

But wait oh wait they’re not done

The creatures grab the sharpie and ink but not one…

Two of her breasts for they are not in shape

Implants is what you need honey! A Perfect body we strive to make.

Their threats pierce into the skull. Yes, I believe this is an unfortunate reality of truth

The dotted line goes further and further down the thighs as they gasp hesitantly for air

For the gap wasn’t strikingly there.

So she traced the thick black lines for her body shape could not possibly be pear.

Wait what’s that a drip I see?

Of water ruining the ink, trickling down her knee?

Her eyes are crying in great desperacy.

I know! They must be fixed. Some cheap fake eyelashes might do the trick. They will keep the mascara from running, a peaceful drought.

Add some eye cream at the age of 15, when she is 60 no wrinkles no doubt.

Thin dotted lines trace around the wrinkles surrounding her eyes. As the marker bleeds of tears.

The ink comes down

To her crane of a nose

The sharpie walks along, not caring of any impose

See nose jobs are the norm, they will do the trick

It will go from a triangle, to a perfect line, quick fix.

Hold up… I’m missing something grand.

Her lips! Yes her lips! Are as thin as quick sand!

She draws the line to insert a needle the next day.

She is perfectly content accepting the pain with a weak “OK?”

Finally, pretty and witty and bright. Pretty and witty and bright. 

Darling, but black is not your soul. The perfection of the permanent marker won’t stay.

For everything sweetheart, it does decay.        

She stares at the reflection that stares back at her in defeat. The black ink slowly fades with a hesitant goodbye.

She looks internally.

Veins tired, exhausted of sucking in my stomach when an eye walks by, stuffing my breasts, no room for my real one’s to comfortably lie, her eyes tired of pinching shut, her lips tired of folding the screeching screams inside, and her heart tired of seizing the anger she has of her very own skin.

Because I am a woman. Pretty and witty and bright.