Elephant Girl

A Poem by Hannah W

A spoken word/slam poem

When I was in middle school,
My lack of beauty reduced me to nothing.
I was an ugly duckling in a pond full of swans,
A minnow in a sea of killer whales.
Unworthy of sympathy or an ear.
I was "Elephant girl, elephant girl. Sent to crush the entire world".
Until one day I wore a dress,
And my breast grew from a size A to a size D practically overnight,
That I became worthy of being noticed.
I began to wield a sword of lipstick and mascara.

Eyeliner became my superhero's mask,
Used to suppress my true identity of elephant girl.

I lost no weight.
My only diet secret was a hair straightener.

People say girls who wear makeup are insecure.
And I ask them whose fault that is?
That every time I wake up in the morning,

And don't feel like donning my cape of foundation
I can feel elephant girl crawling her way back up;
Determined to reduce me back nothing.

Whenever someone says,
"Oh, but honey, looks don't really matter".
It takes all that I have,
To suppress my laughter.