Beauty Sickness

Caught in the culture,

the relentless pressure to hustle,
to reshape,
to define,

to shrink.

Nip.
Tuck.
Pluck.
Shave.

Starve ourselves
into perfection.

The promise -

a shimmering mirage,

An obsession.

Exhausting.
Anxiety-invoking.

A cultural facade we are born into.

Bending.
Contorting.
Conforming.

Our human forms objectified,
reduced to something to be looked at,
judged,
measured,
compared

Always looking from the outside in.

And slowly,
we become disembodied,

estranged from feeling,

disconnected from the wisdom
that lives beneath the surface .

Day by day,
it is normalised by a culture that constantly tells us:

more.

less.

better.

But our bodies are not machines.

They are not projects to be optimised,
measured,
moulded,
or managed
in pursuit of a fleeting ideal.

Nor are they meant to be stripped
of their essence,
their vitality,
their humanity.

They are our homes.

Not perfect
but precious

And when we reject the beauty sickness.

We begin to unlearn
and soften our grip on impossible standards

To return to ourselves
and reclaim our capacity
to heal,
to feel,

and to become whole again.

By Tanya Cameron