They were wrong about the caramel color of my skin,

About the way I could erase my stutter with the stroke of my pen.

They were wrong about the dingy clothes I wore,

Or how about the name given to me by an evil girl…“a whore”.

They were wrong to believe that being smart was dumb,

And even that bullying me could make them feel numb.

It was my “perfections” that showed them their “imperfections”

Since they were wrong about believing that beauty has its bounds,

that inner beauty had no connections to the outer being.

As I got older I realized that I’d been wrong about changing many things in my life.

Because before I’d started second guessing myself, I’d been right about many things in life.

I was right when I looked in my mirror and saw the dark full eyebrows and big brown eyes staring straight back at me.

I was right before I put chemicals in my hair to straighten it to look identical to the rest of them.

My momma was right when she called me beautiful after I’d come home crying to her because of my plump pink lips, round nose, and curvaceous body type.

But what happened to be the best which I hadn’t seen in myself yet, was that My brain, My exquisite and intelligent brain, beat all the oddities that stands in recognition with this society’s perception of beauty.

Being intelligent is the most beautiful character a woman, not only that, a black woman could carry with her.

And for this I am incredibly Beautiful.