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.
