Flaws Like Mushrooms | The Odyssey Online
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Politics

Flaws Like Mushrooms

A reflection on body image.

Abigail Hubble
Nov 21, 2016
Millennials of the Pacific Northwest
7
Flaws Like Mushrooms
@absjoyh

They’re uprooting the toadstools. Again.

The maintenance men are mowing them,

and shredding them across the lawn.

Why?

Because they don’t fit into our

whitewashed version of what it means

to be beautiful, kindly brought to us

by Home & Garden Magazine.

Stuffed down our throats like medicine,

again and again and again by

media and mediocrity. Likewise,

I have plucked and prodded, poked and

painted my own body. Because

my own self-perception doesn’t mesh

with the vision of ideal beauty

that has been fed to me. Spoonful,

by poisonous spoonful. Flaws,

like mushrooms, rise up from

the garden of my skin,

and I rise from the earth,

cultivating nonconventional beauty.

Every spot and freckle,

nonconforming and beautiful.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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