what hurts the most

i was born the year after smoke and fire filled the sky. the catastrophic callous crash that crumbled our empathy. faces turn sour towards people who look like me now. they’re not me. i’m not them. the blood of inequality and extortion run through people like us, slaving away in a system not meant for us. that’s when I was born. bloomed in a world that saw me as 

ugly. 

beauty standards stained the mirror black with disgust, peering back at me with mascara, messy around its eyes, asking me why i don’t look normal. i never felt normal. scratching myself with razor blades to remove the hair growing on my legs, slathering natural remedies to cure my unnatural rashes. pimples collecting in my cheeks, punishing me for being the way I am. punishing myself for loving the wrong things. forbidden glances and guilty pleasures robbed the security I have today. taping my eyes shut in the dead of night, asking myself what was wrong with me? 

doubt laughed as I sunk into my dreams. my escape. 

doubt stopped laughing at me. 

his smirk faded when he saw me gazing into the mirror, still black, and smile. doubt began to fade into the dark abyss of hatred when I kissed the mirror clean with years of deserved love. dust collected on my lips, and sometimes I’d swallow hatred and store it in a deep place, between my guts, filling particles and entering my bloodstream, because a feeling like that doesn’t disappear. what hurts the most is that you have to kiss it better and pray for the best.