Seeing Through Glass

You're flatter than a board.

Have you been eating?

You need to gain weight.

You look like you're about to snap in half like a twig that's been stepped on.

You. Are the only tall Asian girl I've ever seen.

What do you mean you hate your body?

I mean look at you.

You're tall and skinny.

Yeah.

Just because society says that is beautiful, that does not wash away my thoughts about how I look, or what people have said about me.

That does not mean all of my worries have just gone down the drain in an instant.

Being seen as beautiful, and seeing yourself as beautiful, are two completely different things.

I don't see, what you see.

I don't see how having a thigh gap and a protrudent collar bone is so wonderful.

I don't get it.

I don't get how people perceive models in ads jaw droppingly beautiful.

But if we saw them in person we would stare and call them awkward.

I don't get how people feed on this idea of beauty like hungry leeches.

The victim, being themselves.

And I don't know how to take it as a compliment.

When people tell me, "you should totally be a model," like that is the best job I can possibly get in this world.

Like I have no other good traits except my body.

To go sell my body like i'm a 16 year old prostitute.

Sell my soul for all to see.

Drown myself in self-hate and self-misery.

Worry about my appearance 24/7.

I mean.

Being a model is the best thing I can be in this world...right?

Living off of my looks even though that is just temporary.

So, is that job.

So, is my confidence level.

And we were force fed this idea of beauty since birth.

When our parents thought it was the right thing to do, to go buy their daughters every popular doll.

Barbies, Bratz, Polly Pockets.

All of them having a waist size so small.

All petite and dainty able to be snapped in half like a twig that's been stepped on.

Girls, were always taught to want my body type, except with curves in all the right places.

That subtle hourglass figure.

That trophy wife body type that lures men in.

Use your beauty to get money.

Use your beauty to get men.

Why, is this some type of competition?

Why, do girls talk down to me like I am some type of competition?

And they have told me I look sickly so many times.

None of them, stopping to think otherwise.

And they have told me to eat more, gain more, get boobs, get a butt my whole life.

Constantly self-conscious because of my family's "advice."

Opinions from them, and from my friends, like how I look, isn't good enough.

And maybe this is why I was self-conscious about wearing short sleeves until 8th grade.

Because my arms are as thin as a blade.

And maybe this is why my thoughts can go on for an infinite amount of seconds even though that glance at the mirror was only for a split second before I tell myself to stop,

when I tell myself to stop,

when I tell myself to stop staring at my own body like it is some sin,

because I am not comfortable in the skin that i'm in.

Like I must walk away from the mirror before I give in.

To doing such a minuscule action.

To look at my reflection in a mirror of glass.

Not seeing personality.

Just angles, and curves, and lines.

I, guess I don't know how to treat myself right.

But I think it's time to start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12lDYGshWa0