I place myself into the silence like sinking into the bath. Somewhere inside of me exists the void. I close my eyes and try not to think about it so it becomes my only thought. This is the hot searing burden of the heart to which the soul gave birth many moons ago. How often do you change course? If you had a map of all the stars could you find your way home in the dark? How would you know when you got there? How would you recognize your own arrival at the front entrance to your personal self?
I know nobody thinks about these things or at least very few or maybe everybody does but some bury it or cover it over with screen time or whatever. Yesterday I saw an ad for a razor blade so fine it is meant to be used to slough off the first layer of skin on your face. Your face. We are now shaving our faces as though there were not a million other activities to be performed in a given day.
I’m sick to death of looking at women altering their bodies. Doing weird shit to themselves while smiling so glowy white my eyes tear up just trying to watch.
I saw an app which will literally turn your image into a plastic looking doll or ‘model.’ Like the Barbie dolls I had as a kid (and for the record I adored tbh I mean the sheer satisfaction of slipping a tiny plastic hot pink high heel onto that tiny perfect plastic shapely foot was enough to make you think I wanted to be Prince Charming himself when I finally grew up enough to know what the hell was going on).
But there is something sinister in the way girls are encouraged to be bits of pieces, each one ‘perfected’ in its own tiny test tube and then glued back to the rest of the bits to make one doll. It’s so fucked up. What that does to you on the inside is fragment you, pull you apart in all directions and then forces you to look back at yourself without letting yourself see the stretch marks, cuts, and distortions. What a clever way to waste all of our goddamn time.
But I digress.
Exhausted of the minute by minute of a world which seeks to crush the living light out of women and replace it with serums, creams, and injections, I run an actual hot bath and lower my body into the steamy lavender water. They fuck with your dignity and mess with your power. They tempt you and lure you and break you clean straight through. And you hold yourself together so tight and so pretty and so ridiculous good until you realize good is something they made up and sold to you to make them cash and you useless. Good is what makes you want to be bad in the end.
Allison Marie Conway 
Reblogged this on johncoyote and commented:
Amazing written and verbal poetry by a talented writer.
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Thank you so much for sharing, my friend. 🙏🏻🌹
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You are welcome dear Allison.
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Hello dear Allison. I love your verbal words and I agree. We must like ourselves. Teach our children. They are perfect as-is.
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Thank you, dear John. I am truly pleased you agree. 🤍🌹🕊
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When my youngest daughter was young. She told me, she wanted to be thin. I showed her the Victoria secret models. They are beautiful, not thin. It okay to have a shape. I told her good to be in shape and everyone is different. Be happy with who you are. She did well. I have three daughters who are doing well. Hello dear Allison. I liked the Great Britain way of looking at women. Each famous lady, different and special. Not 90 pounds.
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🙏🏻🕊🌹
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Such a POWERFUL post, beautiful one…and it rings truer than ever in these times. I often daydream about when I grew up during my teenage years; seeing women actually applaud their natural curves and beauty without alterations. I continuously pray for divine guidance as I raise my girls (nearly young women now) in the middle of this mess of a world. Salute, sweet goddess💜💜💋💋🙏🏾😘
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Thank you so very much for taking the time to let the words in, beautiful Lisa. Sometimes calling the bullshit out is a way to reclaim one’s power. Most times it is so exhausting. Raising girls into women… how blessed they are to have your guiding, burning, gorgeous heart to nurture them. Salute, angel. I see you. 🙏🏻♥️🌹🕊💋
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💋💋🔥🔥🕊🕊 My heart just does backflips every time I read a response from you!❤️🌹🥰 Yes, I love how powerful it feels to call out the bullshit…Salute, beautiful warrior, I see you too.💜
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You are such a JOY 💋🌹🕊♥️🍁
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Beautiful and heart-wrenching expression of the female experience. I truly believed that things were going to improve for us after Jean Kilbourne’s “Killing Us Softly” series was first released in 1979. She spoke to the objectification of women in advertising, their reduction into body parts (bits), and so much more. She unpacked exactly what was going on. And now, here we are. Yes, I think about these things, and I weep for our lost sisters. I weep for us.
In the beginning – from the time that male artists began to paint the female nude for their own and their patrons’ titillation – the female form was objectified (and sexualized) for the male gaze. Hundreds of years later, Kilbourne shone a light on the advertising industry to point out that things had truly and disturbingly gotten way out of hand.
Today, we have all been turned into voyeurs, not only in regard to others in social media, but most insidiously, of ourselves. The toxic beauty industry has turned us into the object of our own obsessive gaze. To simultaneously be both the voyeur and the object of the voyeur’s gaze is one of the most psyche fracturing accomplishments of modern civilization. Our collective healing at this point can only occur as each of us, one by one, takes back our power – and our primary task is to reclaim and reintegrate body, heart, mind, and spirit. Once the healing is done, both voyeur and the object will have vanished. We have so much work yet to do.
Thank you for sharing your writing… healing can only occur when the wound is brought to light.
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I am so humbled and so grateful for your insightful and eloquent comment, Michelle. My heart breaks for the subject matter, of course. At the same time you are so deeply, compassionately correct in all you have shared. Especially our need for healing. May we be gentle with each other. Thank you so much for spending time with my work, I’m so touched it resonates with you. 🙏🏻♥️🕊
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Awesome post. We must know that we are enough and to love ourselves just the way we are.
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Thank you so very much for spending time with my words. I’m so glad they resonate. 🙏🏻🌹🕊
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You’re most welcome, Allison. 💖
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♥️
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Reblogged this on The Reluctant Poet.
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🙏🏻🌹
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Always a joy and pleasure to read and share your posts with followers, My Dear! Hope you have a great day!! xoxox 😘💕🎁🌹
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Oh my God yes. I mean, so often has it been said that an unfairness exists in the mass produced and catalogued imagery presented to women, which is of course true. But it is not just that, is it? It fractures the girl, the woman. You are bits and pieces, and if this piece does not suit the perfection you aspire to, paint it, replace it, enlarge it. You are a composite. There is nothing whole about you. You are replaceable, even as the pieces of you are. That is fecking miserable. So well said, Allison.
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Thank you, dearest George, for listening. Witnessing. Everything you say is true. It is miserable and maddening and hurts like hell. We scream into the void. ♥️🕊
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