We say skinny
like it’s a swear word.
We blame skinny girls,
ask who ate the skinny girl
and can’t bear the skinny girl
who says anything about her weight.
We’ve branded ribs and collarbones
who didn’t ask to be shown.
We tell them to eat more,
call them twigs, stick-thin
and not flowers pretty enough
for the bees,
because only vultures pick at bones.
I’m not saying skinny
needs to be the new curvy
or vice versa.
I’m asking women and men
and every gender to be a little kinder
to every body.
Everybody has bones and insecurities,
pages of a history
they ripped from their open book
long ago, to be kept and stowed.
I’m asking as a girl
who has always been small
not to chastise me
for the way my elbows poke
when yours don’t.
All we are, is skin and bone
and it shouldn’t matter
how much we show,
keep to ourselves or flaunt
in Instagram posts.
I would like to say
I’m skinny or curvy
or fat or thin
without feeling dirty.
I would like to say
I’m a woman who
is learning to love
her body;
the skin and the bones
she has no choice but to be in.
We say skinny
when we should say
‘Beauty comes in every shape and size
and it is not for me to decide
if you do or should feel pretty.’
Kristiana Reed is an English teacher and a writer (in her free time and day dreams.) She is the author of the WordPress blog My Screaming Twenties and she writes about love, her struggle with mental health, survival and hope. She is currently in the middle of producing Between the Trees, her debut anthology, and writing her first novel.
Reblogged this on My Screaming Twenties.
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Ohh boy is this true. Glad you said this. Courageous. ❤
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💖💖 Aww thank you Henna.
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Well put!
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Thank you ☺️
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The truth is spoken in the best of the way possible.‘Beauty comes in every shape and size and it is not for me to decide
if you do or should feel pretty.’ There is so much of body shaming these days. thanks to the narcissist culture of social media.
Your poem is a hard punch.
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Thank you Megha 💛
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My pleasure Kristiana.Always a pleasure to read your words.
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I loved this, it was excellent. Being petite myself, I have come across this and the way you portrayed the feeling and what the outcome should be for the future is not a penny short of beautiful 🙂
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I’m so happy to hear it touched you 💛 thank you for being so kind.
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