Nothing to Makeup

I think back to when I did art. Charcoal dust was my life.

Life meant that black would mix with skin and

Dive into those feather cracks of my dried hands.

Examined those cracks. They’re beautiful. Don’t deny it.

I know for sure if they aren’t beautiful they are unique––

Because a book said so. Science said so.

Fingerprints, handprints––they’re one of a kind.

Beautiful, whole, lovely––in my mind.

But really, uniqueness, if it isn’t beautiful,

It seems like no one really gives it a second chance.

It hurts being objectified;

Airbrush us into cover models who Mom doesn’t even know;

After all that what is there of you to show?

I think back to high school senior year,

Everyone getting prettied up for a pretty picture.

A picture of you? A picture of who?

Tighten up those tired lines from all nighters

And banish the signs that we were fighters:

Dark circles, smile wrinkles, acne scars from awkward pasts.

And even now when a catalogue arrives at home I stare,

Stare at the unattainable and undesirable,

But I know I can’t make myself know it to be undesirable.

I yearn. I am defeated. I close the laminated magazine.

Salvador Dali once said to never fear perfection because––!

“You’ll never reach it.” How many times have I forgotten that?

Too many of us have been reduced into the ground

By the pain of perfection, the pain of pursuing this affair

That surely can only end in a familiar despair.

Perfectionism is a curse. A curse no one truly has.

The disease that preys on the tender minds of the naive.

But I choose flawless instead. Flawless isn’t a state.

It’s a mindset. The mindset you make for yourself.

It’s the mindset I keep working on making for myself.

It is when I can’t sing a note for my life but still wail it out

In the shower. It is when some days I can’t walk with my head up

But I still do. It’s when I wake up and look in the mirror

And say I woke up like this like Beyonce did

But also don’t need a cosmetic facade to make myself

Feel like I believe that I can just challenge the world,

Because every day, I go out. I go out with my own face.

I go out in my own skin and say that it’s okay.

I don’t give the chance to people to say

“You look different without makeup,”

“You look different with makeup off,”

Because I don’t need to makeup on my personality.

Because I don’t need to make up my personality,

Because I am always my personality.

There is nothing to make up.

Comments

Additional Resources

Get AI Feedback on your poem

Interested in feedback on your poem? Try our AI Feedback tool.
 

 

If You Need Support

If you ever need help or support, we trust CrisisTextline.org for people dealing with depression. Text HOME to 741741