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Two friends.
One is Kind and smart.
One is beautiful.
And, in this scenario, they are the same person, but they aren't allowed to be.
At school, she's smart, and only seen as a nerd.
At home, she's beautiful so her boyfriend will still love her.
And with her friends, she's kind, the sweetest person you've ever met.
You can be all of them, but we aren't taught that.
Some people just want to be pretty, and they let it control them. But its still hard. People still tease them, no matter what they do. They stop wearing makeup? Teased. They wear it again? Teased.
She's learned to be beautiful when she 'needed to.' When she needed to impress.
But she wished they would let her be beautiful on the inside, all the time. She wanted to show others she was kind.
But she couldn't.
Because kind people get taken advantage of.
"Hey, you're smart! Do my homework!"
"No."
"But they said you were nice! Jerk! Stupid!"
So she knew she couldn't do it at school. They would all hate her.
Beautiful at school?
"Hey, sexy," he said, smirking.
"Leave me alone," she shuddered.
He raped her.
So she had to be smart, and that was hard too.
"Nerd!"
"She's so stuck up!"
"What a jerk, thinks she's so much better!"
Is there a way we can win? I want to be me, and I feel like being me is to be ridiculed.
And there are some boys, just as there are many women as well, who won't be held responsible.
"I raped her because she had her shoulders showing."
"That's acceptable, girl. Cover up."
And boys deal with the same fears.
"No, we were swimming. I wasn't wearing a shirt, so what?"
"Well, you should have been stronger."
We live in a world where pain is acceptable. Where people are taught to shame themselves instead of teaching others to be kind. Yes, we are supposed to forgive bullies, but you aren't trying to stop the bullies from being there in the first place!
It's so hard to be a human being in our world.
But be yourself.
It will get better.
It will be okay.
