Sobs From A Girl Not Too Far Gone

Esther Besson

Instructor’s Introduction

WR153: All Poetry Is Political explores the work of contemporary poets who directly engage the current moment and draw attention to such issues as citizenship, gender inequality, gun violence, mass incarceration, and racial injustice. Students were asked to use their final poetry project as an opportunity to explore an issue important to them, as well as to raise awareness and start a conversation about this topic. Esther’s project takes inspiration from the poets she studied, as well as her own lived experience. The poems in Sobs From A Girl Not Too Far Gone, a selection of which is published here, look at how the confluence of body image, gender, race, and societal expectations impact girls as they move beyond childhood to young adulthood. Esther’s brave collection expresses sentiments that many girls and women have experienced, but may not feel comfortable articulating. Sobs From A Girl Not Too Far Gone is not afraid to embrace life’s messiness through its formal experimentation. For instance, “9 Letters, 2 Spaces” separates the first-person “I” from the rest of each sentence, thereby centering the self and forcing the speaker to confront the insecurities accompanying girlhood in a media-saturated landscape. Similarly, the breathless, run-on form of “dead ends” conveys the never-ending tasks that face “a young black girl with no control over her hair.” “Eulogy for RBF” mimics an obituary and confidently rejects the insults and expectations foisted onto the speaker. It is the perfect end to this collection of bold and necessary poems.

Jessica Bozek

From the Writer

My poetry is a place of confrontation, acknowledgement, unmasking, and healing. Every line I write recognizes and amplifies the ironies hidden in life. Every line I speak points multiple spotlights on the hypocrisy hidden in plain sight. I speak as a black woman living in the 21st century dealing with centuries-long issues. I write as a black girl who struggled with her face, her body, her womanhood, and who will continue to struggle with her image till the day I’m laid to rest. I write to heal the broken pieces of my soul. At 19 years old, I have so many fractures and holes that I may not be able to fix by the time I die. But through my poetry, I hope to fill some of those cracks on my path towards feeling a little more whole.

Sobs From A Girl Not Too Far Gone

Poems

9 Letters, 2 Spaces

i’m not miss mann e. quin

dead ends

A Rebirth Of Skin (as a girl)

Eulogy for RBF

9 Letters, 2 Spaces

Feel. Ugly.

i feel ugly.

I f e e l u g l y.

9 letters, 2 spaces in between.

used to dread looking at the mirror hanging by the door, used to dash by

to avoid a reflection always hit with rejections one by one, & even when

did look, what stared back at me was a girl that

thought was drawn sloppily by heavenly hands above.

always thought my blueprints had to be messed up because why would a creator let such a creation run amok? That’s where

was always stuck. At one point

would look forlornly at the girls in the books that would come to my doorstep

once a month, Seventeen cover girls but

knew at seventeen that

would never be cover girl material, no matter how much Covergirl makeup

could use to masquerade for just one night.

Ugly

Feels

Like a weight on your entire body that you never asked for,

just thrown at you before you even realized what appearances meant.

Weight

Feels

Like a heaviness you can never shake off,

a heaviness you constantly have to acknowledge,

a heaviness to feel ashamed about carrying every single day you step outside.

Heaviness

Feels

Like a burden that you can never get rid of,

stuck with an eternal core of lumps and rolls,

that should have been light as paper in your mind,

a hindrance to happiness on the shopping mall’s floors,

the hurt that hits your core when all the sizes never go past 4.

Burden

Feels

like a constant obligation hanging over your head,

yelling “make sure you always look your best!”

Because looking like everyone else

doesn’t mean you look like everyone else,

you can’t afford donning crop tops, sweatpants,

unless you want to be the new focus of a decades long jest.

Ugly

is a word that I wish

I never learned,

because ever since I did,

it’s been branded

on every inch of my skin,

in every corner of my mind

Ugly

was written on every mirror

I have used with a permanent marker,

a reminder to my face and figure

that daily they may remember

to embrace this society-given,

lifelong, open masquerade.

…

Blessed is the peace that will enter my life when I die,

for skeletons never worry about ugliness in the afterlife.

i’m not miss mann e. quin

miss mann e. quin is the color of light

from head to toe,

she was never supposed to look like you.

that’s why you’ll never see her black.

that’s for the shadows on the floor.

you’ll never see her wide either.

that’s for the plus size tags

that have been subtracted from the store.

her guards and knights protect her floor

but they can’t say they don’t want to sell

to black girls. to fat girls. to fat black girls.

so instead

they’ll spin you in a maze of thinly veiled insults

and backhands and coyly phrased suggestions

till you confront their message head on:

they don’t want your skin in the store.

they don’t make clothes for you to enjoy.

they don’t make space to display your rolls or bumps.

they hide you in the back, left for the shadows

because you don’t look like her, the light.

so just keep your body out of sight.

dead ends

i would only get my hair straightened twice a year but my hair was never long when i was younger my kinked up hair defied gravity but it wasn’t allowed to defy beauty standards of society magazines yelled at me that only long hair is beautiful a universal aversion to short hair no matter what texture it held music videos waved flags and signs saying only straight hair gets the guys… and the views – youtube and tv shows played recorded messages 24/7 hollering “nothing past type 3A for you” you being me me being a young black girl with no control over her hair with uncontrollable hair to everyone else except myself please

i never thought my life was going well when i was younger probably because my mother bumped the ends or tried to curl my hair every time my hair was straightened how many times did i try to explain to her that i lived in another generation one where bumped ends couldn’t bump you up the social ladder only pin straight hair gets a strike in the alley of social life

i can’t even tell you what compliments i got if i even got any and yet i tried to restrain my hair every day after school without fail i was in my room with blow dryer and its partner-in-crime flat iron plugged in i was gonna keep my hair straight no matter how long it took i didn’t care for the burnt smell for the steam or smoke filling the air or the almost fainting that occurred every time i finished i didn’t want to go back to my curly hair that got made fun of in every class and cafeteria i passed throughout my school years i wanted to have the super flat pressed tresses that other girls got to have sans bumped ends like they came from the salon every morning without end i wanted to be like them i wanted to be loved i wanted to have true friends i thought my hair could unlock that instead all i got were dead ends

A Rebirth Of Skin (as a girl)

My skin wasn’t always this thick,

Once upon a time it was paper thin,

Just enough to protect my body

from any physical bumps or bruises.

But we weren’t ready for the mental hits.

My skin started to grow at only 5 years old.

When I learned it wasn’t cool to have hair

on your skin, on your body, on your pits.

At 5 years old, I had to care about how my body and skin looked,

Even though I probably didn’t even know how to spell

Hair or Skin or Smooth or Ugly or Beautiful.

But I learned quickly.

I learned how to spell skin,

learned about beauty,

learned about thick skin.

At 5 years old, my skin started to grow

Like sunscreen, I applied a new layer of skin to protect myself,

To make my skin, make myself stronger, tougher

To take the hits I knew were coming, and came still.

But I had to be prepared,

Cause thin skin lets out tears,

highlights the blush of embarrassment,

releases the red fumes of anger.

Thin skin shows a weakness that hasn’t been afforded to me

since I could remember my ABCs.

Years go by,

The layers continue to rise, unpentretable

I renovate my body to become a fortress for my soul

I rebuild my skeleton with steel and concrete,

Keeping my outside cool and collected, as my mind and soul turn inside out.

With skin so thick, the only emotion I show is indifference,

indifference to hurled insults, indifference to celebrations

because being me means no emotions are acceptable.

Eulogy for RBF

Resting Bitch Face – died in a fiery crash in 2016, I was only 13 years old, but it only died once I realized it had never even lived a life. When I realized you called my one and only face a resting bitch just because a smile wasn’t resting permanently on my lips. Just because I didn’t flash you a smile in the hallway or on the street when you tried to call me up like a cat, beck and call.

Resting Bitch Face only lived because you couldn’t live with the fact that all girls aren’t smiling and joyfully skipping through the world every single second, that we can and do feel anger and sadness and stress and fatigue just like everyone else so you decided to call it something else. Christened it Resting Bitch Face so girls could never embrace that supposed unsmiley face for themselves.

Resting Bitch Face died because no one is obligated to see a smile on my face when there’s nothing to smile at on the street. Or in the church reception area. Or in the school hallways as I waited in line for the water fountain. Resting Bitch Face died when I came to recognize all you Resting Bitch haters couldn’t even recognize when I did have a smile on my face because you had already assumed I was a Resting Bitch for life. You expected me to be your token angry black girl turned to angry black woman. Your grumpy brat turned to angry spinster living in a shed by herself with no husband or children to love her. You expected me to never get married, never feel any semblance of happiness, never have perfect teeth because if I never smiled, I didn’t deserve these things. Now take it from me & understand this one simple piece from now & for eternity:

The only time I am a Resting Bitch is when I go to sleep to get some peace.

Critical Afterword

My project discusses body image, femininity, and other lived experiences of girls as they progress through childhood to young adulthood. I emphasize body image within my poetry because of my long history of dealing with my own appearance since early childhood. This emphasis is also supported by the experiences that I have learned from other women, along with my observations of society’s considerations of girls in spaces such as mass media, celebrity culture, and the entertainment industry. That coverage has and will forever impact how girls will regard themselves within society, so I wanted to highlight these universal experiences that many girls share.

One of the largest inspirations for my poetry portfolio is Khadijah Queen’s prose in I’m So Fine: A List Of Famous Men and What I Had On, and the conservational tone she uses in her writing while discussing more serious topics. The juxtaposition that Queen invokes through her style compels the reader to recognize the unfortunate normalcy of uncomfortable and unwarranted situations that women face at the hands of men. That same conversational tone is present in several poems within my portfolio to create the same juxtaposition Queen invokes, but towards body image and societal expectations for girls. Victoria Chang and her poetry book OBIT were another inspiration for my portfolio. In OBIT, Victoria Chang models all her poetry after an obituary, discussing different concepts and important experiences in her life as “deaths.” I wanted to use this style to discuss various shifts that may occur during a girl’s childhood, and how many of those shifts can turn innocent aspects of her identity into something more sinister.

Much of the poetry within my portfolio uses the second-person perspective. The second-person perspective addresses the reader, through the use of “you,” but for the purposes of my portfolio, it also addresses the people and institutions in society who upheld many of the harmful beauty standards and social expectations for young girls from childhood. Using the second-person perspective invokes a space of confrontation that I always aim to create in my poetry, whether I will use it to confront societal issues, past experiences, or my emotions. Using “you” forces both the reader and any other entities I am addressing to acknowledge and pay attention to what I am highlighting in my poetry. Furthermore, the second-person perspective integrates the reader into the world that I create within my poems, and invokes certain emotions and images that are crucial in understanding the themes of these poems.

Esther Besson is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University. She is pursuing dual Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Political Science, and a minor in History of Art and Architecture. She is originally from Philadelphia, PA, also known as the City of Brotherly Love. Outside of her writing and studies, Esther loves spending time with her friends, holding photoshoots, and watching good documentaries. Inspired by her creative writing endeavors during her undergraduate career, Esther hopes to release her own poetry book in the future. She would like to thank her WR 120 and 153 instructor Professor Jessica Bozek for her continued support and guidance during the process of writing this collection and throughout Esther’s journey at Boston University.