Пустота

You taught me to be ugly
Many years ago.
I’ve tried my best
To act just fine
And never let it show.
-
My waist is too wide,
My hair too wild,
My hip bones won’t show,
With the face of a child.
-
I know you were wrong
I know I look alright
But your repetitive song
Keeps me up at night.
-
You don’t look like her,
As you clearly should want,
My mind is a mess,
My stomach in knots,
There are tears in my eyes;
My face strangely hot,
As I step on the scale - oh please let it lie!-
To step off again and, in earnest, cry.
-
‘I may have a problem’,
I say to myself,
As I put my first meal of the day
Back on the shelf.
-
You told me “be pretty”,
You told me “be sweet”,
And your definitions
made it harder to eat.
-
I stumble and trip when I get out of bed,
Just to lay on the floor
With your voice in my head.
When I had finally achieved
What you wanted to see,
My biggest flaw, you said, was that
I was me.
-
So you left with a girl as thin as a twig,
A comparison resembling a rose with a pig.
I didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, and I hated my life-
I managed to live;
Become another man’s wife.
-
My tears break his heart
When I cry on the floor
And tell him that I don’t feel alive anymore.
‘I might never have been’ is the secret I keep,
And I still feel your judgement
When I finally sleep.