Wishful Thinking

I wish that I was skinny, I wish that I was tall,

I wish I was more kind, and not such a know-it-all.

I was that I was clever, and had a bigger heart,

I wish that I was funny,

I wish that I was smart.

I wish I didn't have to turn everything into a competition,

I wish I wasn't the prosecutor of my own conviction.

I wish that my happiness wasn't so frequently fleeing,

I wish that my life meant more than just being.

I wish that I could look in the mirror without hating what I see,

I wish that I could stop existing looking like me.

I wish that I didn't live in this society, the supposed land of the free,

where they won't let you be unless you're less than a size three,

until you've been brainwashed to see what they want you to see,

since the age of thirteen all I wished to be...was pretty.

I wish that I wasn't young and naive and tricked to believe

that it' was wrong to perceive myself as beautiful.

And more than anything,

I wish that it didn't take me seventeen years on earth spent hating myself, to know my own worth.