Stone Fruit

Strawberry, plum, apricot, truly aren’t anywhere near as attractive as the yearned perfect peach

Those textbook curves and exemplary hues are all owed to those imperative clinical trials

All to gain those consumer smiles who are rumored to be living an impossible lifestyle:

To grieve insecurities, strive for confidence, weave defenses, have sleeves that scream brilliance

But my downstream body is full of make-believe tumors and my heart is spilling pus

We are one in the same but I can’t see “us”

My embellishments are lacking and exhausted, my legs, my arms, the tips of my fingernails

and my face, my face is pale, and incredibly frail every imperfection is as bothersome as a hangnail

I keep to myself, there’s no way to put my looks upon a shelf because I’m such an inconvenience to myself

Now I’ve drenched my face and am left to rely on surfactants, solubilizers and emulsifiers

But my face is discolored and skin is insufferably uneven, and thus,

I see beauty but I don’t see “us”

 But on a sunny autumn day, it felt like a prize, that my face was easy on the eyes

Bought a ticket for the lottery but I had already gone on a shopping spree, today I just want to do things happily

Bought peach lipstick even though it never suited me, never liked these body politics anyways

My building blocks were stacked perfectly and I felt as if I was back in university but more importantly I felt pretty

I felt lovely in my skin, and I couldn’t help but grin, after all, I was happier than I’d ever been. I was gorgeous.

Yes, I know now there is beauty in me and all my guts