Victim of insecurity

Painting by Dana Oswald Lakat

It came to me when I was at my lowest,

Creeping up my spine, making me despise every atom of my being,

It came to me, an abundance of insecurity.

Knocking me to my feet until I could no longer see

Anything, anything good about me…

There was a time where I’d put my insecurities to sleep,

Now it’s the lack of sleep that forces me to think deep,

Insecurity, why are you stalking me?

I try to escape you; you drag me down until I weep.

My loved ones call me beautiful; I fail to see…

Am I deluded or does my mirror tell me lies?

Tell me,

Do you lose yourself in my eyes?

Even though they aren’t green like an emerald stone?

Does it matter if you can’t see my collarbones?

Does my belly look big, or does it need to be toned?

Do my lips look perky like pillows or do I need injections?

Why am I so afraid of rejection?

Why does my mind orbit these questions?

Insecurity…

You are a product of this brutal society,

Slowly killing every girl that doesn’t live up to its standards of ‘beauty’.

Insecurity is a void that only gets bigger if I let it.

I am a victim, but I will learn to suppress it.

I will get back up every time it knocks me down,

In the world full of ‘perfection’

I will wear a crown – a crown of imperfections.

No longer will I live to look like the girl I see on my mobile screen,

With her ‘eyebrows on fleek’, and a ‘body so lean’, the ones who the guys call ‘sex machine’.

I will refuse to be a man’s eye candy.

My body is a chamber for my soul; I refuse to let it be reduced to a mould.

My happiness won’t rely on the materialistic world,

I will longer allow myself to become a fragment of a deceptive disease,

I will no longer let this corruption consume me,

I will no longer be a victim of insecurity.