This is the poem I can't write.
I've never hit the backspace so many times,
never scribbled out so many lines. This is the
ball of yarn I'm not sure I'll ever untangle.
The knot I've left unbrushed since childhood,
but now it's so matted, it breaks all my
scissors and combs. Look at me hiding behind
metaphors because I'm afraid I'll cut my fingers
on the point. Because the point is that I use
other women to determine my self-worth.
That I'm never sure if I'm good enough
unless I'm the best and there is always
someone better isn't there?
That another women's success feels like
a personal attack, and shit I don't want to talk
about this but I think we need to talk about this,
because every time I see a provocative woman
I hate myself, and I hate her a little bit too.
And I get the feeling I'm not the only one who
uses an outdated rubric to determine their
grade. The only one who needs a grade to
feel they have value. God I want to scrub this
off so hard that it stings. This inky stain
ignored for so long it's become a tattoo
so ugly I'd rather pretend it's a birthmark.
Like envy was the sin assigned to me by God.
Some days I look in the mirror and think I'm
beautiful, not despite, not in comparison to.
Just truth. And then I hear an old coworker
telling me the hottest women are the ones who
don't know it. A chorus of lamentation about
my fat thighs. All the careful reminders that
boys will jump when offered something better.
And there's always something better isn't there?
Now I've taken you down to the bottom
of the well. This is where the echoes live,
the place where I point fingers at corpses.
Where I use other women's bodies as
stepping stones to try to escape.
Because we all want to escape.
But this isn't a birthmark.
And I don't believe in sin.
Or God.
Or unsolvable problems.
So why the hell do I believe that anyone
could be better? Or worse?
And I think I'm scared to write because I don't
know how it ends. I wish I knew how to
translate thought into feeling.
To transfigure conviction into belief.
But I don't.
I don't.
Amy Notdorft 