Karen Bassey's "Artificial" is a list of everything a person can do to change how they look: heels to add height, fillers and botox to smooth the face, makeup, extensions, highlighters, piercings, nail fixes. The lines are short and stacked, almost like items on a shopping receipt or a beauty routine run through at speed. That piling-up makes the effort feel constant and a little exhausting.
Then the poem turns. After the long list, one line says "Yet I still feel like the ugly, short and skinny me." The word "yet" is the hinge. All that work on the outside hasn't reached the way the speaker sees herself. The words "ugly, short and skinny" sound like old insults she has carried for a long time, and they seem to outlast every upgrade.
The mood is quiet and sad, with a note of frustration. The title suggests the speaker feels fake, as though she is wearing a version of herself rather than being herself. The poem leaves us with the idea that insecurity lives deeper than appearance.