I earned this face
On beauty, aging, and the quiet relief of no longer needing to be chosen
My whole life I’ve been told I’m beautiful,
and spent every year of it not believing a word.
How could I,
when underneath the face they were complimenting
lived depression, rage, and shame -
a skin crawling darkness I was certain
would make anyone recoil
if they truly saw it?
So I smiled.
They said beautiful.
And I thought,
you have no idea.
Beauty felt like a lie I was getting away with,
a mask that fit just well enough
to keep people from looking too closely.
Then someone said,
your daughter looks just like you,
and I stopped.
Oh.
Is that what I look like?
Could I really be that beautiful?
Now my face is changing.
Gravity does what it does.
Stress leaves its quiet signatures.
Greys make themselves known.
In down dog,
the skin on my knees looks back at me
thin, crepey.
When did these become my legs?
My breasts fed a human being for years -
they earned their shape.
I cup them in the mirror,
briefly remembering
the height they once held.
Then let them rest.
At ease, soldiers.
I still get zits.
It turns out acne and wrinkles
can coexist together.
And the lines around my eyes -
those are my favorite.
They came from laughter.
I’m keeping them.
I have been highlighted, bleached, tanned,
made up, shaped into versions
that never quite felt like me.
So when they said beautiful,
what I heard was acceptable -
the version that costs something to maintain,
the one that performs,
the one that hides.
Because when I was young,
when my body was firm,
my skin smooth,
my future something to anticipate -
beauty came with attention.
Doors opened.
Eyes lingered.
Things were offered
I didn’t yet have the language to question.
I learned how to be seen
before I ever felt known.
And I felt none of it.
I felt lost.
Used.
Like I was pretending to be someone else entirely.
Now I am slipping away
from everything they taught me to value -
the youth, the firmness,
the body that performs and produces and pleases.
And something loosens.
The gaze passes over me more easily now.
Good.
And yet, for the first time in my life,
I look in the mirror
and I finally believe it.
Just like that.
After all this time.
They say I’ve peaked,
that this is the beginning of the decline,
that these lines are something to fix,
to soften, to erase.
But I lived these stories
I earned this face.
I am not past my bloom.
I am the bud
cracking open.
