I often question my beauty
I don't think I look like other girls
Other girls are pretty
Other girls look like paintings
Beautiful black Mona Lisas
Other girls are art
Living
Breathing
Art
I've always admired artists
They have this ability to take something ugly and make it pretty
It's for this specific reason I never thought I was good at art
I never had the ability to make something pretty
I spent years thinking I wasn't pretty
I spent years thinking I couldn't create something beautiful
It took me years to realize that I've been painting my entire life
All this time I have been both the creator and the creation
Painter and the painting
I took every ugly thing I've lived through and made it alluring
I painted my scars pretty
I drew trauma into my smile
Tinted tears in my eyes
Shaded struggle into my skin
I took every ugly thing and turned them into the best parts of me
It took me nineteen years to realize that I am the artist
Nineteen years to see that I am the masterpiece I've been working on all this time
It took time to truly understand what beauty there was in my struggle
I found it
It is me
-k.w
