All Consuming

So here I am, sharing my piece on stage! I'm still working on getting up there without my crutch (phone)...I'll get there one day. This one means a lot to me, because its something I know a lot of us struggle with, and shit...I wish we didn't. 

I am so consumed with my 

consumption

I look at this body in the mirror and I see 

all that it should be 

all that it is not

guilt

shame

disgust

at all I have just consumed

The food that is meant to sustain me

Has begun to restrain me 

My drug of choice

Regretting and wishing away 

wishing for more of this and less of that

consuming these thoughts like a hungry child on the street

eating them up by the spoonful

heaping spoonful after spoonful

leaving me

sick

and full

of more

disgust

and regret

and shame

Telling myself, like any faithful addict

that tomorrow will be different

Its a new day

a new dawn

Time to get it right once and for all

because I am not

happy

living this way

seeing this way

eating this way

I am consumed with consuming

And you see

food is not the only thing I am consuming too much of

Self-hate is not the only thing I am consuming too much of

You see

I am gobbling down bullshit

spoonful by heaping spoonful

Messages wired into my brain

that looking like this is NOT

and looking like that IS

Proclamations of self-love sprinkled in

but ONLY if you look like that

I am full to exploding

consuming what I should not consume.

I am sick and TIRED

of being instructed to applaud 

plus size models who are a size 4 rather than a size

nothing

I am full

I am SICK

of the beauty industry being so fucking UGLY

Consumed with sorrow at the fact that it has built itself on the breaking backs

of  already beautiful women

and their insecurities

and their

uncertainties

their self-loathing tendencies

reinforced by society

as we consume more and more and more

endlessly more

Surgeries and creams

diets

pills powder

and machines

Implants and extensions

fillers

injections

lipstick and blush and nails and wax

trainers and treadmills and sucking out

fat

Highlight this and downplay that

Because don't you know?

We are not a complete package we are the sum of our parts

parts that need fixing and replacing and

fine-tuning

Parts that are objects

Parts that are things

Parts we must pick at and prod at and change 

Parts that must consume

In order to become

just right.

And you see. 

I'm told that I'm in need. 

Im told I'm not yet complete. 

Im told to consume more 

In order to BE more. 

And this consumes me with fucking anger!

That all these years I've been Tricked into believing the lie that I need to be something other than what I am 

Just to be SOMETHING in this world. 

I'm angry that I have spent so long consuming all the wrong things 

trying to fill up something that was already full to begin with. 

I am angry that my 3 magnificent and perfectly created daughters live in a world that will undoubtedly tell them otherwise

Angry that my 8 year old has come home crying because classmates called her fat 

And she believed them. 

And angry at myself because who am I to tell her otherwise when she sees the way, I, her own mother looks in the mirror 

With such all-consuming 

Disgust 

Regret 

Shame

At all I continue to consume. 

But you see

All of this consuming is 

contradicting 

what my heart tells me 

you see 

What my heart tells me is that I am ALREADY  whole. 

That there is no hole 

Inside of me 

Nothing broken that needs fixing

Nothing missing that needs finding

Nothing lacking that needs more 

Consuming. 

My heart tells me what the magazines will not 

What the TV will not 

What my own eyes in the mirror will not. 

That I am beautiful  just like this

That the wrinkles by my mouth mean I laugh all the time 

That the fat on my stomach means I consume good food and drink good fucking wine 

That these breasts may be lower than this world wants them to be 

But these bad asses nourished 3 human beings

That I am worth more than mountains of gold

That I am an amazing sight to behold

My heart tells me the truth even when I'm reluctant to hear it. 

So you can have everything else back, cuz I ain't consuming
shit.