FLAWLESS?
Location
I wake up in the morning
and look at my face in the mirror.
I poke, I prod, I pull,
and I am forced to come to the heartbreaking conclusion
that I
am not
Beyonce.
Beyonce, with her flawless eyes
and her flawless hair
and her flawless skin.
Beyonce, with her flawless daughter
with her loving husband
with a flawless career.
Beyonce with her flawless body
and . . . okay, her body, again,
because how do people move like that,
is that what i, as a young woman, am expected to be able to move like,
but also . . . her voice.
That’s like angels descending from heaven,
where when you hear it you’ve been specially chosen
for a message from the big man upstairs.
And then there’s me,
the face in the mirror, and hopefully I’ll be okay with that at some point.
Because I know I’m not flawless.
I pick at my eyelashes when I’m nervous,
and my hair can’t decide if it wants to be straight or wavy,
and it doesn’t even matter because I have to be at school in ten minutes
and frankly there’s nothing I can do to fix me, anyway.
And my skin can’t ever manage to be totally clear so I feel forced to perpetuate the cycle
by coating myself in makeup, deluding myself, deluding others,
into believing that my outside is . . . still not flawless, but closer.
And I don’t want children,
and I don’t have men,
and a career is meant for people who’ve settled down
the way that I haven’t.
I’m too skinny, too pale, too arthritic, too sarcastic,
too too and never quite enough.
And I’m the girl with the voice that is apparently so terrible
that every year I auditioned for show choir,
I never made it in.
But I still find it hard to believe
that there’s nothing worthwhile about me.
I can write, have words fling themselves at my feet
so I can arrange them just so
for my latest experiment in prose
because they know I’ll take care of them, beware of them.
Because I know words have power.
I have good grades, and while that’s not as much a mark of pride
as it once was,
it does show that no matter how many times I say,
“God, I hate school, I don’t even care,”
simply quitting is the unspeakable option that never even crosses my mind.
I stand up for what’s right,
what I sense and believe
even when my surroundings are screaming
that maybe I’m not right after all.
I have the grace to accept that I’m wrong
with aplomb.
Isn’t that something?
Isn’t that rare?
I mean, nobody else seems really to care,
because my body can’t break the internet like Kim K’s or Beyonce’s.
But as for me? I’m proud
that I can wake up in the morning,
and look at my face in the mirror,
and poke, and prod, and pull,
and know in my soul I am no Beyonce,
and still be okay.