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I Seem to Have Lost My Eyes... May I Please Borrow Yours?
Oh dear, I cannot see a thing.
I seem to have lost my own eyes!
May I please borrow yours?
I couldn’t quite tell you when or where I misplaced them.
I used to be nine and unaware of what beauty actually meant,
So maybe some time after that?
Or perhaps when I got my first cell phone,
as ever since then, I’ve had an incessant paparazzi crew
capturing my every move.
Sometimes I weep because my heart has been pierced.
Tears that are honest and true, I swear to you! I do!
Yet I still find myself crawling over to the cheval mirror
like a sprayed down, half-dead spider.
Gazing at the face I see
with black mascara streaks covering her cheeks
wondering… well,
would you still think I was pretty? I’m begging,
please tell me!
I’m ashamed to admit to you that I usually find more pleasure in looking back at photos
than in the moments that I’ve lived.
Because these pictures are evidence I can share to prove
that I really do exist!
I tried to daily journal because therapist Emily said it would help,
but I just can’t.
Because I don’t believe that tales of my mundane days spent in bed
will inspire my grandchildren enough
after I become ugly and/or dead.
Goodness, I am entirely unable to look down and see my own palms!
Here, allow me to return these to you…
Oh my, oh no…well,
they are stuck!
I’m so sorry…
I would give them back
If I could
God, I really, really would.
Maybe I could help you find another pair?
I’ve heard that many others have also
Misplaced theirs.
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This piece started with me trying to journal for my own well-being but being unable to. Although I knew no one would be reading my entries, I still unintentionally wrote them for an audience. My own inauthenticity often tires me. Even more so when I realize that I have no idea how to live truly authentically in this day and age. I've realized that this urge to perform even in my solitude is definitely somewhat caused by the era in which I have grown up. Cameras surround me, both literally and metaphorically. And I believe that being a woman has also contributed to this frustration I feel. The tropes existing about women in media are endless. However, the one aspect that I've noticed remains constant in a majority of these portrayals is that these women are always shown as desirable. Whether it be because they are "unlike other girls" (I hate that trope) in their love for The Smiths or that they are a secret agent who is able to get into violent fights while maintaining perfect hair and sex appeal, these women are desirable. So with all of these desirable portrayals of women shoved in our faces, it seems obvious that some internal struggles would occur when we live our real lives. Our real, messy, human lives that are not always desirable, romantic, and sexy. Rarely so, actually. Sometimes we are ugly when we cry. And I find this raw "ugliness" to be the most beautiful that thing there is.