"Self Portrait" by Cynthia Cruz
I did not want my body
Spackled in the world’s
Black beads and broke
Diamonds. What the world
Wanted, I did not. Of the things
It wanted. The body of Sunday
Morning, the warm wine and
The blood. The dripping fox
Furs dragged through the black New
York snow—the parked car, the pearls,
To the first pew—the funders,
The trustees, the bloat, the red weight of
The world. Their faces. I wanted not
That. I wanted Saint Francis, the love of
His animals. The wolf, broken and bleeding—
That was me.
Born in Germany, Cynthia Cruz grew up in northern California. She earned her BA at Mills
College and her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of Ruin (2006) and The
Glimmering Room (2012). Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and
magazines, including The New Yorker, AGNI, The American Poetry Review, Brown Paper,
Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Guernica, and The Paris Review, and in anthologies
including Isn't it Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger Poets (2004), and The Iowa
Anthology of New American Poetries (2004).
A free verse poem does not follow a fixed metrical pattern. This poem is a free verse poem
because she doesn't follow a pattern and there is no rhyming.
What I got from this poem is that you shouldn't try to be what social media says is "hip"
and "cool". You be who you want to be, that means expressing yourself. Not being perfect in
todays society means you are ugly, then you start thinking "Am I really ugly or fat". This is
how most eating disorders come about, by not being "perfect".
I chose a photo of a "perfect" woman because this is what social media says is expectable. You have to be comfortable in your own skin and be yourself.