Thick Skinned

We have been brought up in a world
where women mind their manners
and find men that won't mind them;
where every girl is brought up to believe
she has a Prince Charming somewhere,
who will sweep her off her feet.
But when her heart is broken,
she is promised there are other fish in the sea.
Instead of telling her
to get her ass off of the couch
and away from the mirror,
we tell her that she will find a man
who will do for her
the way she should do for herself.
We are told that industry runs us.
Maybe we are not told verbally,
but we hear it quite enough.
We are made to believe we are imperfect
because we do not look or act a certain way.
We are told that because we don't look
like every model on every page of every magazine
that we are hideous,
when we are only truth.
Truth is in our acne
and in the bags under our eyes.
Truth is in the cellulite on the back of our thighs
that we try to get rid of
because we are told that truth is imperfection.
Told that beauty
does not lie within the body,
but within a magazine.
We are proven that centerfolds
will never have lopsided breats
or un-even toes.
Actresses will never have torrettes.
Models will never wear eye patches.
We are constantly subjected to
what we should look like,
yet we are never able to obtain this perfection.
For perfection has nothing to do
with skinny stick legs.
Perfection is not a low-calorie diet,
or no diet at all.
Perfection is in tongues
and words
and hearts.
We are brought up to believe that
all we are good for is our bodies,
yet even our bodies are not good enough.
We are made to wonder,
why don't I look like that?
And we are forced to blame God for making us different.
But we should embrace our difference.
Industry can bruise me and bend me
and shape me however they like,
but I am unmoveable and uneasy to change.
I can be brought up to believe whatever the hell my parents teach me
but I have my own beliefs
and I believe perfection can not be found in Vanity or Cosmo.
Perfection can not be found on television screens
or movie screens.
I can only find perfection in myself.

-Carissa-
A hell of a lot of issues I've been facing lately.