These Little Layers

These Beautiful Layers #1

The foundation was a coat of armour I applied to my skin every morning. Shielding myself from the inevitable battering of insults and stares at my pallid skin and sunken eyes and overall grotesqueness without the layers. The layers of beautiful that I carefully applied every morning, the layers of beautiful that made it bearable to look at a reflection and not feel the need to break down in a waterfall of non-waterproof mascara and streaks of white skin.

I look at the full length mirror beside my bed that I greet every morning with panda eyes and baggy baseball shirts that hide the rolls of fat as I sit on the edge of the bed and say goodbye to the horrible monstrosity and prepare to greet the beautiful, makeup-clad girl that would walk to school and watch from the outside as her ego would deflate and regrets of not putting enough makeup wipe away the scraps of security she has left. But before I would walk away from the full-length mirror I would first scrutinize, beginning my routine for the day. I press a hand to my stomach and press the fat back into my stomach, urging it stay there for the remainder of my life. I grab the flesh around my waist and pull it back around my back, admiring the desirable hourglass figure I had acquired before it all comes slipping back as my hands can no longer hold back the androgynous body I had somehow attained from looking at surgically altered people who are (though I don't see a problem with it) the embodiment of plastic and the unattainable.

I go to school and feel the invisible glares and shunning be shoved down my throat and I can't ignore it, especially as I think of ways to say I don't care but I do. The compliments are all but muted, I forget about them as easily as I forget about what I had for dinner last night, especially since the only thing on my mind right now is that that other girl is so much for beautiful than me. The attention paid to me is easily missed, but I can't help it, I'm thinking about other things, especially that little voice in my head who's telling me that I'm not gorgeous, or pretty, or desirable because I don't look like them. All those other girls who don't understand how good they have it, or even worse, when they do. And flaunt it with such grace that I resort to bitterness and when I wash my makeup off at night the water is sour and my face is harsh under the fluorescent lights when I stare at my naked face, I feel empty inside.

Most of all I feel my hatred towards myself, and although I try to come with something to combat against the animosity, somehow the makeup isn't only an armour that's keeping all the lies I feed myself in, it's keeping all the good things out. So when I tell myself that I'm ugly and that I'm fat and that I don't deserve anything; I can't think of anything to say.