Beauty In a Monster

True Beauty

She was beautiful
But she didn't see it
No, I'm not stereotyping women
I'm not saying that we have to be insecure to be beautiful, to make men love us.
Women are strong
And though society beats us down with its expectations and standards,
We don't have to be what they demand us to appear to be.
Because we must not forget that we are not only strong, we are also fragile.
We break over and over and over again.
Some of us build ourselves up again and harden our hearts and slam up walls around our minds.
Some break but never come back up.
High standards and expectations beat down on them, crush and grind till there is nothing left to save.
Nothing but dust and ash.
Making her a prisoner of societal expectations.
He saw what everyone else failed to see
He saw her strength
Her intelligence
He looked into her eyes
And saw the depths of her soul
He saw chaos
He found shadows
And spots of light
Heaps of wisdom
The beauty of her soul.
Others, all they saw, was the facade.
They cared not to see true beauty.
They prefered the manufactured
The plastic
The superficial, external, and very temporary 'beauty'.
She saw only what they wanted her to see...a blemished face and body
and thought it impossible that he could love her.
You see, he was the perfect image
The beauty that society adored and worshipped
But they refused to see the beast in his eyes
The beast he so desperately feared and despised
He runs and hides
She, the true beauty, saw him for who he was
And for that he loved her
Loved her so much
That even the beast inside him hiccupped in surprise from her gaze
Gradually, the beast was tamed
And blossomed into something new and beautiful
Something that was not a beast at all...but a man
With light in his eyes and compassion in his untouched heart...
A heart that learned to love for the first time.

Written by Veronica Taryanik
07/27/16