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| The genius art of Anna Gensler @instagranniepants which depicts illustrations of men who have objectified her on the popular dating app, Tinder |
Greg #4207
i fell into it.
Late at night in the inky light
of loneliness,
your face was bright.
Framed by brown hair,
your blue eyes seemed to stare into me, and
i found myself waiting eagerly for the next,
message, fingers typing furiously, telling stories
of direction and misdirection.
We swap numbers, a connection,
soon communication changes from words to pictures,
and i think here we go again...
You show me your tattoos,
Your long, naked torso covered in ink,
red and blue characters, making me rethink
the value i show to myself.
You'll show me yours if i show you mine, you say, and
i'm back to that day - a game of doctor on a sliding
board in a trailer park when i was four.
Is that what we've been reduced to? Children exploring
each other's bodies not through discovery but
through the two dimensional revelry
of pictures?
It just seems so shallow
This dabbling in hollow
connections. Yes, there has to be chemistry
but something is telling me
this ain't it. Once objectified, there is no way
to rectify this feeling. Legs not, hair not, face not right
held to this microscope, is it any wonder girls everywhere
cut, burn, starve, puke, try to die?
We aren't good enough for this male standard of perfection?
Do i need to list my measurements? The exact
circumference of my
shoe-size-bra-size-credit-score-GPA-DNA-IQ,
eye/hair color/weight/height
Ph of skin type
melanin density
full ancestry
blood type?
You see, I am so much more.
My whole life I've tried to click with some
standard of beauty, some ideal feminine duty that's never fit.
Not tall enough or too tall; not olive enough, too fair
and freckly; my ass
too big or not big enough. But here's what you can't see from my
C cup:
Those breasts gave life to two girls who will become women.
Though five years apart, both
flopped up on my stretched belly like warm fish,
their eyes looked into mine to show them
how to define
themselves, how to stand tall in a world that wants to make them feel
small. They suckled the life from my breasts - yes, they're more than just
play things in your shallow conquest.
And these legs have crested a hill to find
an antelope sprinting from the jaws of a mountain lion
in the Black Hills;
they've hustled in traffic in Chicago and
stood still for a cattle drive across a dusty road
in the Wind Rivers of Wyoming.
This ass that you oogle has run hundreds of miles in tundra covered by night while
wolves howl;
This voice has called to Great Horned Owl.
These thighs have gripped the bare back of a stallion long before
your prowess, felt his muscles tighten in a gallop.
These hands held up my father as he lay dying and my mother
as she wept for the loss of her One Great Love.
Dabbling in this life online has made me
long to be back on that sliding board when I was four,
before I knew to judge myself,
before I knew that I was anything less than
perfect.
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| The genius art of Anna Gensler @instagranniepants |
