The Body Electorate

The Body is in full swing election

Campaigning for a senate seat in the house of body image

Her boney knuckles shift unbound in fight for dominance

An underdog

Given half a chance between nicotine streaked fingers

And crash diets

She blocks the mental carcinogens spewed from lips

All too familiar with late night binges

Her slogan:

Hunger only believes it’s beautiful

When beautiful becomes sculpted out of hunger

Chiseled marble forms in magazines

And all the young girls follow the Pied Piper

The candidate clutches her skin over ribs

Stretching their way back to healthy

After a brief encounter with it’s opponents tactics

Plastic surgery marking pouches of “excess”

The body approaches the podium

“As many of you know, I have, in the past,

Fallen victim to the shallow

And I’m here to tell you

The only hunger that’s beautiful

Is the hunger to know yourself

Together we can fight the opposition

Take back the power of blood breath bones

Let’s look in the mirror with naked reverence

At what each sacred body has to offer us

Let’s unstitch the seams of size 0 fabric

Quilt in patches to embrace the “excess”

It need not define us

It’s just skin in reflection but a masterpiece of excellence

The body pauses – notices – a demonstration swelling

Wallets fat with weight watchers and waif fashioninstas

Pouty lips and high rollers on the strip of celebrity

Her stomach growls in protest

Hunger is beautiful, hunger is beautiful

Still stretch marked with the roadmap of supposed perfection

She eats a sandwich

She laughs

Soon she will have the floor

She will filibuster Teen magazine for each girl

Making decisions based on air brushed images

For every woman weighing worth with a scale

Yes, these fat fists are taking on the industry

She’s voting for herself

I heard this read at a poetry slam by its author, Jocelyn Bates. We had randomly become friends that evening. The fact that this was her poem made me feel like God was involved in this one....