The mirror only knows how to say

"You're unique," in the worst way,

The fairy tale bodies

of crinkled magazine covers always implied a happy ending,

But this, is

your body,

And this, doesn't end with an ever after,

 

You, used to play connect the dots

with your acne,

And look for constellations in them,

And sometimes you found

Orion on your cheek,

Gemini on your forehead,

Cancer on your nose,

You found

a way to entertain yourself

when they called your stars anything but buttons of life,

How they called Orion a mistake,

Gemini ugly,

Cancer a disgrace,

How they needed a telescope to find each of them in the sky

When your face was a map to the galaxy,

 

Did they know, they only had to look above your lips

to find the North Star?

It would've shown them their moral compasses were off,

How they should've called you Mr. Universe,

instead of hideous,

How they should've studied Astronomy before observing the heavens,

How they should've known

unexplained mysteries of the cosmos shouldn't be taken at face value,

 

They, were nothing more

than satellites trying to understand the solar system,

But only collected glimpses too grainy,

Too short-sighted,

Too unfocused for them to realize,

The world didn't revolve around them,

The world

Pockmarked and blemished and dented,

Rounded with bumps,

Discolored and heaping with seething tension,

 

You, cannot trust a man if he says the Earth is flat,

And you, cannot trust a man if he says the Earth is circular,

The Earth holds

etched canyons

and rolling valleys

and sharp mountains,

And nothing that makes it perfectly spherical,

 

So tell them,

you tell them,

You are made of stars

too bright for the naked eye,

You will keep on living

as long as your constellations will point you in the right direction,

You will give them more reason to keep on looking,

And if they find someway to dim you,

If they prove Greek myths

have no place in the sky,

If they forget why they were looking,

 

Remind them you were never meant

to give them directions in the first place,

Remind them they shouldn't stare,

but instead stargaze,

Remind them you've got

two meteorites on a crash course towards their face

Ready to leave craters at any moment,

So you give them a reason to point out

every single one of your stars,

Let them waste their life counting your faults

Because they've got nothing else better to do.