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Invisible girl

The laughter, the comments; the judgmental stares
The same one I so coldly echo in every reflection to compare
If I am woman enough yet for a man to truly see bare

Without being a miserable circus animal whipped by expectation into complete disrepair

Without being a spectacle to mock and laugh at because my body is shaped like the punchline of every joke at a comedy show

Because the expectation of a woman is to be a pedigree dog, ready to perform every demand and call


Invisible girl

''King Kong!'' - ''Gorilla arms!''
Barbed wire comments and disproportionate lingering glares
Gawking and gossiping about her thick, lush hairs
That always grew in all the wrong places, generously, including her face
Which, by the way - I still have to shave
Routinely every day, to nullify the judge and the jury that give no fair trials when facing a mirror’s inescapable fury;

Manscaping from the peak of my chin to the crest of my nape
Flesh raw from every grueling scrape of those familiar five blades

And how they seem to never get close enough for me to feel safe,
From the creature I see
Who’s always leering back at me, when I check my reflection to assess if I’ve missed a place


But it’s a painful kiss I’d rather take
Then letting the lips of a lover discover my abusive relationship with shame, or worse, be shamed
Because my skin is barbed with the shadows at five. It’s not soft, or supple, like how we’re supposed to be advertised

You know, for a time, I felt shame for even liking guys
Someone who looks like me, who’s too big - too manly to be “She”
daring to be bold enough to desire another human being? Embarrassing.

I thought, maybe they’ll notice her fondly if she has more palatable assets
Long hair, full breasts; plump peached back end
I don’t even look right for what the standard of acceptable fat is
I’ve been wearing hair extensions since I was 12 years old, if anybody cares

I look better with my clothes on anyways

Invisible girl

Always seen as the “disgusting fat mountain of stretch marks”, and never for the amount of good in my heart
Or for the way I carried an eternal creative spark

That’s what those boys said, the first time I ever did something so daringly bold in school - Like wearing my hair up, wanting to look pretty like the other girls do
They laughed and teased within ear’s reach, knowing I’d heard their derogatory speech; while my head lay against my desk from a chronic lack of sleep - resisting another panic attack as they perpetually plagued me,

They were talking about the back of my neck.

Even to this day, I still never wear my hair up outside the shelter of my own home
Because those voices from decades ago still echo in the recedes of my brain
Etched like the tallies on the walls of a prisoner’s cage
Who’s paying a price with a sentence to life
For the crime of a body she cannot hide


Invisible girl

Be humble, be polite
Quiet and pleasant and - shoulders straight; lessen your appetite
Wipe your face
Please and thank you, perform every grace

They put me in the newspaper for that, you remember right? This is what people like?
A well mannered puppy who doesn’t bark, growl, or bite?

Invisible girl, with dreams as big as the world
Growing up I never wanted a husband, or kids
My first love was art and even now it still is
I needed someone to see me, so I could realize what, or who, I could potentially be
Because I was blind to my gifts and the places they could’ve taken me

I think I was about 9? When I stood on a stage for the first time
I’ve always wanted to shine
Sing with a voice drenched in the divine,
To be seen beyond the veil of this physical body
As something bigger than just the number on a scale, that readily brands my worth as a human who’s failed

A hollow dream, or two, or three I didn’t aspire to achieve
Because I thought someone who looked like me possibly couldn’t succeed
A mantra engraved on my brain from the ripe age of three
So I abandoned the idea of possibility

Because I was the invisible girl
A heavy hearted child with fattened flushed cheeks
Instead of using my voice to speak, I suffocated it into silence with food to eat
Because what’s the best cure for pain if not a happy meal

A dollar and a deal, to be temporarily healed

Rather than expressing what I truly want and need,
Not because I didn’t want to, no
I was a child after all
Who internalized the cruel world she lived in, and scarfed it down until her blood sugar made her head spin
Because no one could see the suffering she was imprisoned in
That viciously festered like a plague maggots and parasites
Beneath the hull of her fermented skin

Speak now or forever hold your peace;
If only she knew the steep price
Of being needless and never perceived,
or loved in the way she desperately needed to be

Invisible girl

My best relationship has been with shame
Which is unfortunate, considering my last two nearly left me with my name on a grave
Til death due us part, til my flesh is stripped from my bone
Maybe then I’ll finally feel at home
When the trees take me back in their roots
Swallow this body and turn it into life anew
So I can finally be held closely by something other than the bittersweet taste of being seen as a waste of space, because of my weight


Invisible girl

Oh no - not from the outside
But the in.