{"id":53355,"date":"2016-03-03T15:18:34","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T20:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=53355"},"modified":"2016-03-03T15:27:31","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T20:27:31","slug":"i-am-not-my-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/i-am-not-my-body\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am Not My Body"},"content":{"rendered":"

This poem was originally recited at She\u2019s Got Talent 2016, organized by the New York Region of NCSY. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"Tova
Tova Rosen recites her original poem “I Am Not My Body” at She’s Got Talent 2016. Photo courtesy of Naomi Abeserah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tova Rosen, a\u00a0<\/em>10th grader at the Torah Academy for Girls (TAG) in Far Rockaway, NY, was a top finalist within the competition.<\/em><\/p>\n

I am not my body.<\/p>\n

I am not<\/em> my body.<\/p>\n

I am more<\/p>\n

than the numbers on my scale<\/p>\n

and the numbers on my test.<\/p>\n

But this world<\/p>\n

forces me to see<\/p>\n

with judgmental eyes,<\/p>\n

like the mass of humanity needs to be one.<\/p>\n

Not in a cohesive united way,<\/p>\n

rather,<\/p>\n

suffocating,<\/p>\n

squeezing,<\/p>\n

barely breathing,<\/p>\n

into shapes of society.<\/p>\n

My hips and my shoulders<\/p>\n

bulge of the corset<\/p>\n

they want me to fit into.<\/p>\n

Justifying it by saying<\/p>\n

“beauty is painful.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Beauty should not be painful.<\/p>\n

It should be real.<\/p>\n

It should be comfortable.<\/p>\n

It should be pure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pure is not painful.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is your life measured by lipgloss,<\/p>\n

hairbands, or the amount of people that sit around you at lunch?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I still lose myself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hiding in external elements because when I don’t I hear “What will they think.”<\/p>\n

“Are you really gonna eat that?”<\/p>\n

“Try harder”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is your blood darker than mine?<\/p>\n

“Try harder”\u2026?<\/p>\n

You just spit out words,<\/p>\n

tint them, strip them of all meaning.<\/p>\n

You never wore my shoes.<\/p>\n

Yet you still use words as weapons.<\/p>\n

Dividing your own values into letters.<\/p>\n

Categorizing into labels:<\/p>\n

“obese”<\/p>\n

“anorexic”<\/p>\n

“mentally unbalanced”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Or<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“beautiful”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But the thing about labels is that they’re black or they\u2019re white.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two different extremes<\/p>\n

on opposite spectrums of the universe.<\/p>\n

Not even on the same radar.<\/p>\n

No gray area.<\/p>\n

No way out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You’re either\u00a0 ten out of ten<\/p>\n

or non-factor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quarterback or on the bleachers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You’re only worth is your label.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Relying you’re own love for yourself based on opinions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But words are temporary.<\/p>\n

They won’t follow you to your grave.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They update.<\/p>\n

Based on your newest shoes,<\/p>\n

or how you look after that detox diet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Starving in your own insecurities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After you see the dermatologist<\/p>\n

and your face is shining like the moon,<\/p>\n

but surrounded in darkness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Make it or break it.<\/p>\n

Kill or be killed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So I destroy what destroys me, like I’m going into a cold pool.<\/p>\n

One step at a time,<\/p>\n

getting each toe immune<\/p>\n

to the temperature.<\/p>\n

Before I dive in,<\/p>\n

Not fazed by the cold.<\/p>\n

I don’t even know how many people I\u2019m hurting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My skin is shriveled<\/p>\n

in lack of sensitivity.<\/p>\n

Drowning in my own filth.<\/p>\n

Shallow beauty<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Painful<\/p>\n

Meaningless<\/p>\n

Piercing<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tears beneath my smile,<\/p>\n

Sadness behind my laugh<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Try hard-<\/p>\n

echoing<\/p>\n

Try hard-<\/p>\n

echoing<\/p>\n

Try Harder<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So I analyze the rain.<\/p>\n

Holding hands with nature, like we are a team.<\/p>\n

The sky is crying with me,<\/p>\n

raining, releasing pain within drops of water.<\/p>\n

As the thunder cracks into roars,<\/p>\n

screaming with me.<\/p>\n

Still holding my hand<\/p>\n

setting me free.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But I still have scars and bruises<\/p>\n

I played with fire<\/p>\n

I burnt myself a few times repetition<\/p>\n

I fall every time<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In this twisted fractured concept<\/p>\n

of beautiful<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Handing my happiness into hands of strangers<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Giving parts of myself to judgmental eyes<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Manipulated and brainwashed by labels,<\/p>\n

so I peel off mine<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Refusing to try harder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am not letters.<\/p>\n

I am not numbers.<\/p>\n

I will not try harder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am not my body.<\/p>\n

I am more.<\/p>\n

I am so. much. more.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This poem was originally recited at She\u2019s Got Talent 2016, organized by the New York Region of NCSY. Tova Rosen, a\u00a010th grader at the Torah Academy for Girls (TAG) in Far Rockaway, NY, was a top finalist within the competition. I am not my body. I am not my body. I am more than the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nI Am Not My Body - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/i-am-not-my-body\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Am Not My Body - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This poem was originally recited at She\u2019s Got Talent 2016, organized by the New York Region of NCSY. 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