Acoustic Memories

|| reclaiming the idea of beauty ||

on some days i used to wake up and feel like stepping
into a sack. this body doesn't house me. my skin doesn't
feel mine. i look in the mirror and wish i could step out of
this body, tear the skin apart and come out.

what was i supposed to do when everyone else
were a million colours and i was a shade of grey?
the boys didn't look at me. i couldn't hold my head high.
i used to look at my face and see it twisting into a
scowl because there was just so much disgust everywhere,
and i stopped taking selfies. my shape decreased as quick
as my insecurity increased and the photoshopped banners
on my phones and the perfect girls at school didn't help at all.

until the day it changed.

i remembered my mother didn't spend nine months
forming my body inside of hers so that i could hate it
when i came out. i remembered that every cell in my body
didn't work to keep me alive and healthy, just so i could
repay it with hate. i reclaimed my body. kissed the acne
and hugged the stretch marks. winked at the mirror
to remind me of the goddess that i was.

i realised the meaning of beauty didn't have to be unique.
when she walked by, she was pretty, but i realised that
other people's prettiness doesn't make my prettiness any less
pretty. i don't look like her, but i've realised that the moon is
beautiful and so is a rose and they look nothing alike.

i understood that there were a million different flowers
in the world and some of them had more petals than others and
some of them were different shades but all of them still
bloomed and every one of them was beautiful.

i remembered that it was okay to eat because it made me
healthier. calories gave me the energy to smile.
i noticed it was okay to have fat because it was natural and
it never made me ugly or unlovable. my shape was
perfect. my scars were beautiful. my body was a work of art. 
i had to spend the rest of my life in this body, and i knew
i might as well make a loving home out of it.

and i stopped looking if the boys noticed me anymore.
i was a piece of art and i would still continue to
be even when the lights were off and the gallery was empty.

my life was going to be amazing. i was going to
build mountains and travel the world, i was going to fall in love
and succeed in a career, i was going to be a ball of light
and my insecurities were never going to stand in the way.
my body will help me walk and see and listen and love,
and it was goddamn time i loved it back as well.

---

a note to helin : you're perfect. that's all i want to say. never ever think there is only one way to be beautiful, that you have to be so and so in order to have beauty. you're a lovely person, you don't have to put your worth into your shape or your looks or whether people look or not, because people are just never ever just looks. you're so much more. i hope you like the poem, and i hope you love your body. i wrote all this in the past tense so that you could believe these words when you read them out loud.

i know you're still on verse two of this poem, but one day in the near future i want you to come up to me and say your life made it all the way to the last stanza. i'm rooting for you and i believe in you.

a note to everyone : send me your story, i'll write you a poem!