Cosmo Girl

“Pain isn’t good for the heart
Pain isn’t good for the soul
Pain is good for art
Art is good for the heart
Art is good for the soul
Pain is beauty yet to be transformed”

A checklist for cuties, portrayed as truth
The necklace of beauty becomes a noose
Of imperfection, eyes pressed against magazines
Impressed yet depressed as interests and impressions

Dispensed at request
Somewhere there’’s a cosmopolitan girl
Squinting in front of a mirror
Holding a pair of tweezers trying to remove
the smallest excuse as to why she’s not
beautiful.

Somewhere there’’s a cosmopolitan gal
Bent over a garbage- pale
Feeding insecurities regurgitating impossible standards
Clutching her stomach because
no one has ever touched her heart

Somewhere there’’s a cosmopolitan gal
sheepishly counting down 10,9,8,7,6…
Before a surgeon slices her chest
Shoving silicone so that she can have breast
And feel like a real woman
Something to pay attention to besides that
Pesky personality

It’’s not hard being perfect I just wish that it cost less
Gone to the spa, to the salon then the therapist
I don’’t care if it’’s, something I really want
Just so long as you want it- I need it

It warrants a lack in me, inconsistent image of self, mixed with apathy
I see what’’s in vogue do what I’m told and imitate fashionably
If it’’s cool, it makes me cool so rationally, that’’s the way it has to be

I’’ll look weird if people aren’’t matching me
If I stick out that would be a catastrophe, that would mean agony
That would be blasphemy, a genuine tragedy
My whole strategy is to be an absentee
Blandly blending in with the crowd absent me
If I didn’’t that would be unforgiveable
Someone might have the audacity to mistake me
For an individual

Words by Phillip Elliott
Illustration by Maame Hayfron