Photo contest: poem about the impact of social media on an older woman’s self-image

Ugly selfie of a normal non-ugly older woman

She retired and now she’s on the internet
she’s looking at those photos
of all those gorgeous over-50 women
and she’s looking through her photos
for a photo of herself.
This one is new but she looks so old.
Here she looks nice but the photo is old.
So she take a selfie and she sees
a monstrous lumpy nose
hair you could ride a bicycle through
and wrinkles reflecting the moon.
Somehow it doesn’t look right
it doesn’t look quite the way she feels
or the way she thinks she looks.

She studies older fashion bloggers
and she loves the way they look
so normal and so real
not like models on the catwalk but
like people on TV or in
shopping catalogues.
And she studies the prima donnas
of old age style and loves them too
so bold and operatic
so dazzling and dramatic.

So which is the right look for her?
Normal beauty (as seen on any screen)
or theatrical (like a New York style queen)?
Normal (except she cannot photoshop)
or flamboyant (except of course she’s shy)?

Who is she in the end?
She thought she knew
until she went on Facebook
and her body slumped.