What i learned growing up,

I was told that you have to look a certain way to be noticed.

That you have to spend hours pulling at your hair, and with every tug-

“Beauty is pain”

Your mother would say with sympathy dripping from her eyes as her hands are entangled in the hair attached to your small head.

As you get a little bit older,

Don’t forget to apply lipstick, not too dark-

“You don’t want to look like a s***”

Your mother would say.

Endless running, the sweat rolling off of your body like pouring rain.

“Beauty is pain, beauty is earned”

When i was younger i had a thought planted in my very little smart head that,

No matter what you’re never going to be pretty because-

“Beauty is pain”

And sometimes-

Sometimes the pain is hard to handle but despite the wax strip hanging off of your pre-teen blonde hairy legs, you can’t give up or they’ll take away your beauty-

All i remember is growing up with pain, never once happiness.

I can still hear my Mother’s weak voice whispering.

“Honey, beauty is pain.”

If beauty is so painful, why do we have such high standards?

Why should little girls grow up with this image that they have to be stick thin, hairless, blonde, tanned but god forbid too dark.

What I learned growing up is that society has standards unreasonably high that strip young girls of their youth and joy.

What i was told is “beauty is pain” and we have to be strong enough to endure it.