What She Says

She says she is not beautiful because her hair will not lay flat like it is elbow macaroni under a rolling pin;

She says she is not beautiful because her eyebrows are big like the televisions in Costco;

She says she is not beautiful because her arms are warm and soft like biscuit dough;

She says she is not beautiful because stretched skin lines her body like rickety train tracks trail the river;

She says she is not beautiful because her eyes are thin like the finest saucers;

She says she is not beautiful because her nose tilts just slightly like the orbit of the moon;

She says she is not beautiful because her muscles stick out like the biggest guns at the rodeo;

She says she is not beautiful because her ankles are scrawny like baby mice;

She says she is not beautiful because her eyelashes are crinkled like dead rose petals pressed within a book;

She says she is not beautiful because her knees bend in like bamboo chopsticks holding a Christmas ham;

She says she is not beautiful because her hips are narrow as the moon's widest crater;

She says she is not beautiful because her lips crack like a bad joke;

She says she is not beautiful because her belly is lumpy and round like the shell on a fresh walnut;

She says she is not beautiful because her fingernails are overgrown like wicker brambles;

She says she is not beautiful because her toes bend like the last Cheetos in the bag;

She says she is not beautiful because her wrists are bony as a long-forsaken grave;

She says she is not beautiful because her cheeks bubble like goldfish kisses;

She says she is not beautiful because her ears stick out like they want to catch a cab home;

She says she is not beautiful because when she sits her knees won't touch like children at their first school dance;

She says she is not beautiful because her skin is scarred like it is an ancient relief pulled from the ruins of Pompeii;

She says she is not beautiful because when she cries her tears sit in her dimples like family waiting at the bedside of the comatose;

She says she is not beautiful because people stare like she is a funhouse mirror.

She says she is not beautiful because they said "She is not beautiful." like they must hold lower her head held low.