Our scars tell stories without speaking
But we cover them
Hiding them beneath shame and insecurity
Brought on by culture that demands perfection.
These wrinkles share wisdom
but we smooth them and pull them,
edit them and cut them.
Glossy ads hate our lines and
lure us into spending
for promises that don’t keep.
Whites and greys adorn our head,
crowning us with a life well-lived.
We color them
veiling the truth to escape time.
We mask our faces to conceal marks from birth
and sleepless nights, playing like life hasn’t touched us.
We stuff our bodies into elastic confinement,
pushing and shoving and zipping ourselves
away as if the tasty enjoyment has never passed our lips.
We lie about our beauty, thinking that its
found in symmetry and smoothness and fixing it up.
Eventually, we all look the same.
But beauty, true beauty is found in the marks of living.
The uniqueness of what time and circumstances have done to us.
True beauty is in the vast array of things that are broken,
scarred, used, and marked.
Spots and stains give
narrative to our history.
They prompt wonder and questions.
We’ve been groomed to think beauty is one way or another.
It has nothing to do with perfect.
Absolute beauty is found in everything.
All we need to do is open our eyes.