Slam poetry critic

My 13 y/o recently wrote this slam poem and is thinking of entering a slam comp. can you give her advice to make the poem better?

What lurks in the back of our heads
Is the things that people said
their words are piercing
Sitting at the bottom of our stomach
Heavy, like food we can’t digest
So we are left
With this flutter of dread
That keeps appearing
A little part of us erodes everyday
A voice tells us to hate,
It gnaws away
Bit by bit consuming your mind
Like a haze that blinds you
Until you can’t see anything.
Not yourself. Not your beauty.
Just the word “ugly”

And these words
seeped into your every pore
And the belief you aren’t enough
Becomes one that you can’t ignore.

Society profits of us wanting to change
To poke, brush, prod and comb ourself
In to a version that isn’t us
A replica of the girl on the magazine
Who is also broken at the seams
And ripped apart by a salesman's dreams.

We mold ourselves like clay
Thinking we can pinch ourselves in to a like-able person
We are becoming such a strange shape
Trying to become some-one else's common
“Beauty”
This system is corrupt.
Is it really that rebellious to love oneself?
We are expected to paint over ourselves
But what if instead of painting over myself
I paint the picture of this world
I paint what I see, the truth.
I see a world that asked us to apologize
And blind our eyes
To who we are.

I refuse to apologize
For the bags under my eyes
And the hair on my legs
And the frizz in my hair.

I refuse to apologize
For the pimples on my nose
the lumps in my ponytail
And the clothes
That i wear

I will not compromise myself
If society doesn’t like my face
Then society can suffer.
I will not shape myself into another version

I was born as myself
And as myself i will die
I will not compromise.

Posted Jun 27, 2026, 7:33 AM UTC

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