Warning

WARNING: Reflections in this mirror may be distorted by socially constructed ideas of 'beauty'.

Beauty: Thin, bones, hip bones, collar bones, thigh gap, white, shaved, long hair.
Collar bones filled with hopes, desires of showing up more. To extend so far, they can deliver a business card: Specialized in carving holes.
Holes that can almost be filled with wine and used as cups, holes so vast they can only be compared to black holes sucking all the stars, all the bright, all the air inside.
This is not a warning for the ones who chose to be deft, blind and mute. This, is a warning for the suffering, the resilient, the weak in the mornings, the non-sleepers, the anxious, the frighten, for the ones who have chosen not to look in the mirror to gain a little of independence every day.
To stand through the daily mediatic burst of images that feed every mouth until their teeth fall, their knuckles are scared, their hair tumbles as you brush it, until we are no longer humans but bones, skeletons, boxes, sand, forgotten.

This is a warning to start throwing up the silent obligations of 'beauty', of 'perfection', instead of the lunch your mother has made. To reject the infinite diets and blogs dedicated to persuade, instead of the dinner your boyfriend offers just to know what's wrong.
To say Yes, please when they ask you if you want to eat and say No, with the force of the empire when they say thigh gap.

When they say hip gap, thigh gap, rip bones, make your body say No, make your body say Alive, full, strong.
And let them hear through their hands in their ears, you'll never be what they want, you'll never surrender to their lies embellished to please.
You'll never be their beauty or their perfection, you'll never promote the sickness, the distortions, the caves you have build so long ago.
The caves that have memory from when you had just 4 years old and your family tells everyone proudly how you never ate, how you were 'so picky'.

Caves so deep that consume the flesh to leave more space between her and the rest.
Caves so dark, you can never see clearly in that mirror, in that picture you erased because you couldn't stand the way you looked.

Because you knew that if your friends think you are beautiful, it's not enough. Because it was never about the ones around you, it was always about the mirror.
That goddamn mirror where everything started, where you notice your stomach wasn't flat enough, your legs weren't thin enough, your hip bones weren't showing enough.
Where you notice you were never enough for yourself, for the carved image of perfection.

This is a warning to recognize yourself, the glory of what you can not see in the mirror, of what's inside.
A warning to see in those eyes that judge in the mirror and tell them they're wrong.
Tell them you don't want to die, you don't want to vanished, to languish in the reflection.
Shout it, you want to stand strong, to take up space, to be proud and hold your head high.

Whisper to it that it is not you, is an illusion designed to trouble.

WARNING: Skeletons in boxes can't look in the mirror.