Models On The Wall - A Spoken Word Poem

Models On The Wall 

By Reyna Woodruff (Grade 11)

The little boys and girls ask, “Mommy, why don’t I look like the models on the wall?”

Because it’s everywhere, on our phones, in our heads, in the clothes at the mall 

Nothing really fits, not standards, not opinions, nothing at all

My hips, my lips, my hair 

Never really seem to compare 

To the models on the wall 

But how do they do it after all?

You could do everything you can 

Try on clothes, put on makeup, fake tan

And still look at yourself with appall 

Because you don’t feel like the models on the wall

They say beauty is subjective, but what does that change? 

When everyone still wants the models on the wall, isn’t that strange? 

The models on the wall have the right clothes 

The right face 

The right body

But what really are the right clothes 

The right face 

And the right body? 

Do they exist? Or is it all just an allusion? 

Something that lingers in a state of confusion 

Is that we don’t see the pills 

The hunger 

The pain

We don’t know about the surgeries 

And the tears of acid rain

The Photoshop, the withdrawal

That it takes to look like the models on the wall

But when the glass is shattered and broke 

The pieces spread on the floor and we see through the smoke

Then you’ll see 

Your mind can be free

And realize that after all

No one really is the model on the wall.