Spider Silk

The media is enthralled with skin and bone again,

reviving the ghost of early 2000s glamour,

collarbones sharp enough to hang praise upon,

bodies thinning to spider silk and cigarette smoke.

Ozempic whispers through Hollywood hallways

like a holy cure for taking up space.

Every headline measures women in inches,

every camera hungers for less.

And somewhere beneath the shrinking,

beneath the applause for disappearing,

a generation relearns

that starving can still be called beautiful.

But I am thankful

for the pride my abuela carried in her wide hips,

the very ones that ushered nine lives into this world.

For the lightning bolts stretched across my own skin,

marking my thighs like proof of becoming.

For the softness of my body,

even where it loosens and drapes

like royal curtains in dazzling halls.

For the sharp cheekbones

I inherited from my mother,

a cut clean as diamonds.

Even for the silvered dimples

that rest along the backs of my thighs,

gentle as ribbons beneath water.

I refuse to carve myself smaller

just to survive in a world

that only knows how to worship women

once they have nearly vanished.

Sarah Amoros