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Davis, California

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Spoken words

Editor’s note: This year, MUSE will be featuring more local artists and performers by creating a space for artists’ works to be shown. And this week a poem written and performed by Ruby Ibarra entitled “Beyoutiful” is on spotlight.

Ruby Ibarra is a rapper and spoken word artist from San Lorenzo, CA. She is a former member of UC Davis’ spoken word collective, SickSpits and an alumna at the university. She has rhymed for over six years and has been fortunate enough to be featured in noted web-based publications such as Worldstar Hip Hop, XXL Magazine, and MTV & VH1’s blogs.

The content of the poem in its entirety, spelling and diction included, are intended by its author.

I wanna be 5’5″ with brown eyes

Big breasts, small waist, and nice thighs’

Cause I only see myself through your eyes

So I don’t eat, but I’m fed with more lies

So I try and I cry and I purge and I vomit

The urge to be honest, with no courage to just stop it

Society’s ideals, so I feel I need a shield

Skipped another meal so I can keep my appeal

But my skin starts to peel, I can no longer feel

What it means to be real, so I fall on these heels

‘Cause who cares about the frame that holds my diploma?

Or the train of my thoughts that molds my persona? 

Or the way I’ve been brought up to be as a grown up?

But it’s the body’s frame trained by the way of society’s boner

‘Cause I have to be 5’10” and in trend

And only feel good about the clothes that I’m in

Experience defined by the beds I’ve climbed in

Shadowed by a mask that I’m forced to hide in

So of course I lie then, thinking each night I need to lie beside men

Drinking each time my pride inside is rising

Trying to find me, but I’ve lost what I’ve been

Who’da thought that it’s me that I fought each time and

All at the cost of what I’ve become

When I look into the mirror I feel numb

Staring back at me are super-sized thighs, empty, hollowed eyes

Heart full of cries, brain filled with lies, body materialized, so I

Nip and I tuck, I snip and I pluck

Lips covered in muck, hips controlled by these cuffs

Can’t stick to my gut, I’m fixed and I’m stuck

I’m tricked by this bluff ’til I’m sick and throw up

This shit is corrupt, I’m forced to grow up

Can’t fit in this stuff, this change is abrupt

Stick thin ain’t enough, must be thick with C cups 

Tears drip as I rub off this make-up that’s rough

Society’s planted silicones, so we end up being sickened clones

Stuck in this cyclic flow of afflicted bones

So don’t let your sister know that she’s worth more than lipsticks and combs

And that her blisters will show every time she vomits at home

When your parents aren’t home, and she’s all alone

Only seeing what these magazines and TVs have shown

I wanna be a covergirl, so I cover the real girl

But if you peel off these pearls, under’s a concealed world

Of a girl with hopes and dreams, brighter than things that gleam

Who knows that she’s a queen, knows what her life means

‘Cause I can only be 5 feet with slanted eyes

Geek and kinda shy, small feet and crooked smile, just me, with no disguise!

Next Tuesday, SickSpits will have its first open mic night of the quarter at Central Park from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Spoken word artists like Ibarra will be performing their pieces. For more of information on Ibarra specifically, visit: www.rubyibarra.com/.

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