Lioness - (Live at the London Poetry Slam)
Channel: subparpoetry
Date: 12/07/2015

To anyone who has ever felt like they aren't good enough.
You are worth so much more than perfection.

the poem:

I can't make you love yourself.
I wish with every ounce of my being
I could make you love every pound of yours-


but the universe isn’t so kind.
The universe is the kind 
that lays unsteady paths
for unsteady people 
in hopes they’ll learn to balance.
And you're the kind that has vertigo 
from your high expectations
and motion sickness 
after running in circles
to escape your problems,
desperately peeling yourself 
petal by petal
Unable to decide whether 
you love yourself or 
you love yourself not


Though you dream of chlorophyll veins
To live off sunlight and co2 alone, 
You were never meant to be
delicate or weightless;
you were meant to be a lioness
And photosynthesis is overrated. 


flowers will wilt and face their end 
on a gust of wind,
but you will stand against hurricanes 
with the strength of
muscle and
bone and
glorious,
glorious fat.
Yes, even though you erased fat from your vocabulary when you erased fat from your diet, 
Fat never became any less useful,
any less beautiful in fact.


Because
As you pound the Serengeti floor in chase,
it is the weight of your last meal burning fat
and pumping carbohydrates to your brain
that fuels you;
as you pound your fist to your favourite song
in your friend’s car
it is the weight of your last meal burning fat
and pumping carbohydrates to your brain
that fuels you.


You are a wild animal,
in need of nourishment like any other.
When you feel silenced by numbers on a scale
don't you dare forget that
You are not a vegetable,
a roast, or a rack of ribs,
valued by your weight
When you feel silenced by a nutrition label,
don't you dare forget that
calories are a unit of energy
not a measurement of self-worth.
When you feel silenced by the way a mirror shapes your stomach and thighs,
Don't you dare forget to love yourself.


Feel your extra skin and every limb
you might have blamed for your sadness
and come to understand that they
were never meant to be delicate or weightless-


Because you are a lioness;
You were meant to live on a basis
of taking what you want by tooth and nail
with no exceptions.
You were meant to take the plains by storm
You were meant to accept that you are hardly more than a handful of
flaws and accidents and broken memories
but it's shattered pieces
that make the most beautiful mosaics.
You are the strength of a thousand tiny pieces held together with the cement of self love 
and may you never succumb to a wind whispering words like “fat” because
you are not a flower. 
You are a lioness.


And although 
I can’t make you love yourself,
I will still wish with every ounce of my being
I could make you love every pound of yours.