My Body as a Temple

My body is a temple

So why am I afraid to step inside?

Shameful to admire inherited heirlooms

Instead to stare out at the street instead

Where they tell you to ‘accept yourself’

‘You’ve only got one skin so wear it’

Yet they are checking themselves too

In the windows of my overlooked temple

Where I’m hiding from my conjoining thighs

Becoming twins instead of sisters

Much like their comparisons

Who will be smarter, prettier, skinnier?

‘They’re only worrying about themselves’

Yet have time to spare to uptake icons, undeserved

On their potential pile-on, post-baby bodies

Inferior against the tower of dieting dreams

Which entail a remodeling of your temple

Yet you have no money left to spare

The drapes are hanging lower and though you try

A candle will not light the whole room

It’s ‘the light out of the darkness’

But what if you’re distracted by a natural roll

You didn’t get the golden, airbrushed ticket

Yes it’s fake, but we can still believe

That emulating your neighbor’s temple

Will revitalize yours into something beautiful

However, there is only a limited supplier

Counterfeits may gleam but they’re not gold

Your skin, your smile, your being once glowed

Excitable embers now dulling in the fireplace

Suffocating under news of society and femininity

Yearning for some new fuel to ignite

Your body is a temple

So please cherish its walls, its treasures

For this isn’t practiced love

As I have yet to find that utopia.

(The first draft of the poem)