“Am I beautiful yet?”
I ask the mirror
Like it is a god
Capable of granting worth.
It studies me coldly,
Fluent in every flaw.
The uneven skin,
The tired eyes,
The mouth that always seems
On the verge of apologizing.
So I learn to measure myself
In smaller ways.
In the number of heads that turn.
In compliments that dissolve by morning.
In photos filtered enough
To resemble someone easier to love.
I become a construction project—
Shaving away pieces of myself
To fit inside other people’s hunger.
And still,
At the end of every transformation,
The question survives.
Am I beautiful yet?
Not prettier.
Not desired.
Beautiful.
As if beauty is a gate
And everyone else was handed a key at birth
While I remain outside
Knocking with bleeding hands.
But maybe the tragedy is this:
The mirror was never answering me.
Only selling me another reason
To keep asking.
And maybe beauty was never meant
To be something earned through suffering.
Maybe it existed long before
I began bargaining with my reflection.
Still, some nights
I stand there under dim light,
Searching my own face
For evidence that I deserve softness.
“Am I beautiful yet?”
The silence hurts most
Because part of me still believes
The answer determines
Whether I am worthy of love.
May 13
May 13, 2026 at 9:41 PM UTC
“Am I beautiful yet?”
I ask the mirror
Like it is a god
Capable of granting worth.
It studies me coldly,
Fluent in every flaw.
The uneven skin,
The tired eyes,
The mouth that always seems
On the verge of apologizing.
So I learn to measure myself
In smaller ways.
In the number of heads that turn.
In compliments that dissolve by morning.
In photos filtered enough
To resemble someone easier to love.
I become a construction project—
Shaving away pieces of myself
To fit inside other people’s hunger.
And still,
At the end of every transformation,
The question survives.
Am I beautiful yet?
Not prettier.
Not desired.
Beautiful.
As if beauty is a gate
And everyone else was handed a key at birth
While I remain outside
Knocking with bleeding hands.
But maybe the tragedy is this:
The mirror was never answering me.
Only selling me another reason
To keep asking.
And maybe beauty was never meant
To be something earned through suffering.
Maybe it existed long before
I began bargaining with my reflection.
Still, some nights
I stand there under dim light,
Searching my own face
For evidence that I deserve softness.
“Am I beautiful yet?”
The silence hurts most
Because part of me still believes
The answer determines
Whether I am worthy of love.
