Our Binary World

• Jialiang Chin, Grade 10, Alstonville High School
• Poetry
• 2007

3rd in the 'Calling All Poets 2007' competition

An epidemic - plaguing our nation
Taking the children: the young and the weak
Bloated and gorging they grow, ever larger.
Across the room or down the street,
Matchstick girls with frail twig limbs
What's beneath their "beautiful" skin?
No fat and low carb,
Toned by wholemeal and treadmills
Starving behind a veil of self deceit and lies
Into a pit of hopeless aspiration, they shrink.
Binary opposites - similar only in anguish
Whether in appetite or self opinion: insatiable!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
But sickness is seen by all.