Open Your Eyes -The Reality Our Girls Face

This is a poem i wrote. it's a little sloppy but it gets the point across.



Open Your Eyes
By: Abigail Kelley



Natural is flawless.

To cover up is to hide

Too fat, too thin, too in-between

Is perfect in His eyes.



Starvation is not a third world problem

Self-harming is now a religion

Depression results in the mausoleum

Although we’ve been forgiven




The media is our guide

To what life should be like

We nip and tuck and cut, cut, cut

Till our blood has run dry




Hollywood is paradise,

Models are the gods

The magazine is the new bible

In which we base our life on




Running our world

Around a fake façade

The imagery and false skin

Is what we desperately try to be in




Knowing it’s false

Knowing the truth

We swallow the lies

And preach it to our youth.




It’s time to open our eyes

What’s inside of our young girls

It’s time to realize

It’s not just about the prettiest curls




It’s a fight to the death

The death to oneself

Who can eat the least

To be the prettiest on the shelf




Open your mind

See what’s infecting

Your precious daughters

That the grave is collecting




Tell them they’re beautiful

Say that they’re perfect

Get into their lives

And tell them they’re worth it




Perfection is a disease

That’s infecting the souls

Of our perfect daughters

And flawless girls




The media lies

Beauty is within

Tell them to be comfortable

In their skin




For they were wonderfully made

By the hand of God

If you tell them they’re perfect

You might be the only one.

This is something i constantly try to stress to people. as a woman who, as a teenager, struggled a LOT with self harm, depression and bad body image, this os something that weighs heavy on my heart. being depressed and having low self esteem is not just "teen angst" or "hormones." it's real. it's something almost ALL women and girls struggle with.

If you've read my last post you will know my thoughts and where i stand on the whole "Thinspo" thing and bad body image. we constantly compare ourselves to what we see in the media. to the false portrayal on what we are supposed to look like. the media, the models, the photoshop experts... they're deceiving each and every one of us, saying that if you don't look like this, you're not beautiful.

however, as stated in my last post, you can see that the photos are fake. they're photoshopped. thighs are trimmed. waists are thinned. bottom is tightened...etc. not even the models look like what they want to. and if they do, they are starving themselves to achieve it.

our girls today are doing the same thing. go in Instagram and look up #skinny or #thin or #thinspo. you'll see the horrific images that young girls are posting. here are just a few.

This is the real world.

the end of my poem says it all.
tell her she is beautiful, because you might be the only one in her life to ever say it.