Why Should I?

• Isla McIlwain, Grade 7
• Poetry
• 2022

What do you do every morning? Ye, I don’t do what most of you do because when I wake up in the morning I go damn,
I really need to stop eating. I need to keep exercising, lose weight, look skinny otherwise no one will like me.
I mean who doesn’t like a barbie doll? Why should a 12-year-old have to wake up to find themselves sucking their stomach in,
Tensing their stomach because they need to look perfect. Perfect with a capital P.
“Because that’s what everyone wants”
But who wants that? I don’t. Why should I have to feel like this? Why should I have to look like this?
Why should I have to believe there are expectations to how I’m supposed to present, how I’m supposed to look towards other people’s opinion.
Why should I have to think everyone is always watching me, picking on me, judging me.
I shouldn’t have to think that. And I don’t because I am perfect with a capital P.
I am beautiful. And I need to embrace this, Show the world I am unique and amazing, just, the way, I am. I’m my own barbie doll, and body image,It doesn’t affect me.