Beauty

“Smile, beautiful girl.”

How can I frown, you wonder, when all you see is beauty.

But this thing you notice, that you call beauty, is not.

Beauty is not how I look today, not my hair, my skin.

This is too simple.

Beauty is confused by those who see it as power.

And yes, it is powerful in the face of those who fear what it might do to them.

But beauty is not something you can claim,

not something to keep by you for selfish reasons.

Because behind that beauty is a person,

a person whose beauty is difficult, is complicated, is vulnerable.

Her beauty is not just something to see. It’s something you know, you learn, you feel.

Beauty is not just another, to be found elsewhere.

Perhaps you see it as a distraction and then treat it as such.

Beauty is not just the curve of a back.

It is an interaction: the touch, the feeling, the knowing.

Beauty cannot just be her pretty face, something that distracts you for a fleeting moment.

How could something so superficial, something you will forget tomorrow, be beautiful?

Real beauty lingers. It is felt, it is shared.