I am pretty…  I am talented…  I am smart…

I am pretty, I am talented, I am smart

I am Pretty. I am Talented. I am Smart. 

These are things I have been told my entire life and the things I tell myself now.

Over, and over, and over. 

But. The opinions of the ones who love me, know me, and see me for who I am are somehow outweighed by the opinions of glossy-lipped, sickly skinny, and “popular”

I was never enough. Not for them. I will never be. So I will be enough for myself.

I am Pretty, I am Talented, I am Smart

The idea that I

 a young woman at the age of 15

Born from a single mother and a father who didn't want me till I was three years into this world

Where the opinions of white men on magazines and talk shows only see women as pretty things to hang on their arms like expensive handbags

I am pretty. 

“My daddy told me”

I am Talented

“My daddy told me”

I am smart

What does this phrase mean? 

Do you know what my daddy told me at the age of 10?

As a child, standing in my room of sanctuary that he had trespassed into only to declare his dissenting opinion on my looks and how I acted

Speaking to me in harsh words, that I wasn't going to like myself and that it’d never change

Rough hands stinging youths flesh over the things I could “change” 

My beliefs and the fact that I love women just as much as I love men.

Pretty, Talented, Smart

Because I, The daughter he didn't want, wasn’t daddy’s little girl, 

And so I know that I am pretty, talented, and incredibly smart.