If I Could Change One Thing, a Spoken Word Poem

If I could change one thing about myself

I would change the way I see myself

You see, I view myself through fun house goggles

Seeing all the weird, little things that just aren’t quite right

I see the way my hips expand past the point of pretty 

I see all the little folds that I know shouldn’t be there

Yet the little folds that won’t seem to leave

No matter how little I eat sometimes

Or how much I desperately wish they would

I see every name that I was called stapled onto every piece of my body

Until there is not a single area of skin that isn’t covered in self hate

I look at myself and see everything I can’t get right

Like the pimples that draw constellations on my face if I forget to wash it once

Like the teeth tinted slightly yellow because of all the nights I didn’t even have the energy to get up and brush them

Crying takes a lot of you, ya know

If I could change one thing about myself

I would change the way I see myself

I would see the eyes that are so blue that you just can’t help getting lost in them sometimes

I would see the kindness in my smile

And the love in my heart

I would myself for all the things I did right

Like all those hours I spent consoling upset friends

Even though it was like two in the morning and I was exhausted

Like all that time I spent collecting money for the family of the boy at school that needed it most after their house burned down

I would see the beauty in every new poem that I wrote

So if I could change anything

That is what I would change