I used to think…
That I wasn’t enough
That my fingerprints were something you could easily etch a sketch away
That my hair was merely a mountain of frizz with dandruff snowcaps
I used to think
That my face was more a picaso than da vinci
That my body belonged to the renaissance
So I crafted an image of myself
A reflection I did not wish to bare
A mask I had no desire to wear
Kept the facade up for awhile
But there were cracks in my smile
Made from the specter I kept within
Beating on being it was wearing me thin
A ghost of my former self
Nobody saw the real me
Only the phantasm I wanted them to see
I let myself hide with the flaws
Behind my built up solitude walls
Serving simply to save myself
From you
With your judgemental gaze
I only wanted to earn your praise
Picture perfect
Yet
Suffering Silently
Damaged by scarcity of symmetry
The harder I tried to be ideal
The closer I got to becoming unreal
Why do you still despise me
Though I followed your guidelines perfectly?
How have I not achieved the goal?
Why does not even perfection fill my aching hole?
All the dark thoughts were there
Too afraid to even dare
Go any darker than I already had
So I just
STOPPED
Listened to the hands tick-ticking on the clock
Somehow in their rhythm I found
A familiarity in their sound
It doesn’t matter how slow or how fast
Forward is forward
Leave the past in the past
I know now
That my soul is older than the novels I love to read
That my heart wraps around you, and ties you off with a bow of compassion
That my family is matchless, the paramount of who I am
That I don’t have to despise the image that I see
Because I am moving forward
At my own pace
Learning to love my crooked face
Transforming into the best me I can be
So goodbye to my self-worth the size of a flea
I’ve finally parted the image I used to see