What the Eyes Miss

Is all we are a body?

Breasts and torsos,

thighs and stomachs

curves and edges measured by wandering eyes,

mapped like land meant to be taken.

To the gaze that looks but never sees,

women become thirst before language,

necks turned into long drinks,

skin mistaken for invitation,

desire mistaken for understanding.

Compliments stop at the surface.

Beauty is praised while depth is ignored.

Flesh is admired,

but the mind beneath it goes unnamed.

Degrees earned in silence,

knowledge borne through seasons of becoming, unnoticed.

Hair grown long and healthy,

falling past backs, unbound

praised only if it frames a body well.

Wit that snaps clean like a match,

souls dense with emotion and intuition,

voices capable of lifting grief

or bringing angels to stillness

overlooked.

But is that all women are?

No one reaches beyond the surface.

Layers of love and dimension

remain untouched.

Galaxies form just beneath her breasts.

Light vibrates through her veins,

but still

Myth lives in muscle.

Wisdom hums beneath bone.

Women are educated,

enchanted,

ethereal.

Yet still

no one knocks.

No one pauses long enough

to ask what lives beyond the flesh.

So the question remains,

not whispered but demanded

Is all women are a body?

Or is that simply

all the world was trained

to notice?