FLAWLESS?

Thu, 01/29/2015 - 21:25 -- jenna12

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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.

 

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