Beautiful

You were once called beautiful.

.

Back before

when your hair reached your shoulder blades.

When you tortured your eyes with mascara

and pretended to enjoy the attention

dresses gave your shin bones.

Lovely and pretty

they called you, but you

took these as insults.

You fought your training bra,

felt heavy while you ran.

You felt velvet different than other girls your age.

.

Sit straight and tucked ankles

beneath socks with frills.

You let your eyes linger on the section across the store from you.

Where the pink came in small doses

and your brother was welcomed

while you remained stuck.

Sometimes you touched the denim

on the mannequins.

Mumbling something about boys

as if you were separating yourself from them.

Because beautiful didn’t get dirty

or need pockets.

.

But when that girl in eighth grade

pinned your hair up under a hat

and clasped her hands on your biceps,

as if she were preparing you

for battle

you blushed.

Not because of the tingle of her fingernails

or the kiss you had shared the night before

but because you finally saw the beautiful in you.

Beautiful wasn’t satin or buttons or ribbon tied childhood.

Beautiful was a baseball cap.

.

So you stole your father’s flannel.

Hid deep in your brother’s hoodies

and cut your hair when your mother wasn’t home.

You took the stares like being knighted.

Tight chested, loose hips

and more stubborn than the freckles you didn’t conceal anymore.

They stopped calling you beautiful.

Started calling you other things.

Confused. Pretending. Tomboy.

Ugly.

Until they stopped calling you anything at all

and let the silence be your definition.

.

But every mirror was a reminder

that beautiful was beautiful

in plaid or floral.

And that girl in eighth grade

who only kissed you once

would never want you any other way.

Many girls later, you hear that word again

in the mouth of someone who never saw you before.

She puts her hands in the perfect place

above the elbows

and leans in close.

Your hair barely touched her cheekbones.

“You’re so beautiful”

she whispers

but not as a secret.

Because you both know it’s true.

Posted on: 28th October 2012 - 58 notesReblog