For Consumption

Anatomy of a product

Puberty is late.

I am the last one to develop.

Padded bras
stuffed with tissues,
just so no one notices.

Then finally,
it comes.

I cry
when I see it.

Not because
I wanted it.

Because I wanted
to be normal.

My body changes,

but I don’t look
like the girls
on the cover
of Dolly.

I have boobs
and hips,
and my stomach
isn’t perfectly flat.

Maybe those girls
don’t eat
three meals a day.

So I stop
eating lunch.

My body
still doesn’t match.

So I start running.

I run
until my lungs burn.

Until hunger
feels like discipline.

I still don’t look
like the girls
in the magazines.

Pretty enough
to get the boys’
attention.

Pretty enough
for girls
to be mean.

So I have more
boys as friends
than boyfriends.

I keep wondering
what those girls
in the magazines know
that I don’t.

Then one day
it dawns on me.

Those girls
were never girls.

They were products.

Made
for consumption.

And somewhere
along the way,

I became one too.

A voice
gains presence.

Be sexy,

but don’t
be a whore.

Be feminine,
but not so feminine
that you expose
the fragility
in his masculinity.

Need him,

but don’t
be needy.

Have opinions,

but only
when they agree.

Be funny,

but never
funnier
than him.

Be intelligent,

but never let it
outshine
your beauty.

I learn
to laugh
a little quieter.

To explain myself
a little less.

To apologise
before I speak.

And above all else,

feed his ego.

If it’s well fed,

everything
is safe.

Everything
stays balanced.

Don’t let them
see your mind.

It’s not
marketable.

Hide the books
on your shelf,
and the inner worlds
they’ve built
inside you.

Give them
a glimpse
of your body.

It’s what
they came for.

Keep the rest
behind the curtain.

Your thoughts
are too heavy.

Your truth
too loud.

Your hunger
too much.

Trim yourself

until you fit
the packaging.

After all,

a woman
is easiest
to consume

when she arrives

already cut

into pieces.

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My name is Mara, and my publication Organised Overthinking is part poetry, part observation, part “I should probably have kept that thought to myself.” Making eye contact with the human condition and then writing about it. If that sounds like something you would enjoy, I would love it if you would consider subscribing.

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