"You don't owe your prettiness to anyone. Not your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked as 'female'" --Erin McKean

My face.
a poem by Reyna

My face,
My beautiful face.
The face you see beauty in at least.
But all those sticks and stones thrown to the bone, thrown at my skin. Town away limb by limb, covered in bruises and scratch marks that nobody seemed to notice, the marks that seemed invisible to all, the marks I dreaded to see in the mirror everyday, yet those marks were nothing but mere hurtful words. Hurtful words that tore me from the brim, making me spill and spill till I couldn't no more. Till I couldn't see the pretty you saw, and yet once you you still call my face beautiful and I wish I saw the beauty you saw but that was a privilege that was stolen from me. From the men and the women whom had stolen my self love, who had ripped me at the seems, just to stitch me back up and put me back together like I was one peice again. That one peice only little me was able to see. Was only able to feel. 
My beautiful face 
That only you could see
Yet it was still my face
My skin
The skin I no longer loved
The skin that wrapped around my body
And twisted around my spine and covered my face to which I covered with a layer of a mask so nobody could see those cuts and bruises that had now become scars, scars so ugly the world should never see.
My face
My face, my imperfect face.