Who Am I? (Performance Poem)

This is a performance poem rather than a page poem and I will be filming and uploading a video of the performance in the coming few days!

Who am I?

Who am I?

I am all of the magazines I ever read,

all of the articles that told me

I was a nervous girl

waiting to become a empowered woman.

All of the pictures telling me

what I like to wear, how I like my hair,

and what every girl is doing with their 'downstairs'.

I am the music I listen to.

I am Beyonce, Taylor Swift

I'm the Beatles and Panic! At the Disco.

You say goodbye, and I say hello.

I am all of the guys that ever

tried to touch me in a club.

I'm all the 'don't be shy's,

and, 'It's no big deal's.

All the guys who don't care

how I feel.

I am all the shoes I've ever owned.

I'm my first pair of trainers

with the light in the sole,

I'm my first pair of heels as a teen,

my first party I went to in them,

and all of the regrets in between.

I am all the colours I have dyed my hair,

I'm the accidental yellow,

I'm that happy blue,

I'm the 'notice me please' pink

and all the off colour hues.

I am all the posters I put on my walls,

I'm the pictures in frames

of my family, my friends.

I'm the pictures of ex boyfriends

tossed in the bin,

I'm all of the bullies

I swore wouldn't win.

I am my mum's eyes, her nose, her mouth.

I am my dad's coarse hair,

his refusal to back down.

I am my brother's practical jokes,

the frights, the trips, the scuffed knees, the brawls.

I'm the fights, the tricks, the crying, the falls.

I am the days I forget my coat

when the rain catches me on the way home,

I am the way it makes my make-up run down my face

and the way it permeates my skin.

I am the sunny days where the rays

seem to penetrate the haze

and burn from the inside out

as if my flesh was paper thin.

I am my arms, my legs, my hands, my head.

I am my lips, my hips, my brain, my breasts.

 I am all of the teachers that I had crushes on.

All the popstars, rockstars, celebrities

I ever obsessed over.

I'm all of the Spice Girls rolled into one

and all of the songs that they ever sung.

I am all the people who spoke patronisingly.

I'm loud, quiet, planned and spontaneous.

I am everything that people thought I could never be.

I have defied everything to be here and I am Me.

By Samantha Boarer