My daughter will not crawl from crib to tanning bed.
She will learn
the terms “unnattainable beauty standards” before she learns the alphabet.
She will never compare herself
to anyone.
She will never compare herself to Britney, Christina, Selena.
She will never compare herself to Cinderella, Ariel, Belle,
Hell. No.
She will never aspire to be the sultry sex kitten taking seductive showers in shampoo commercials.
No.
My daughter will be named Venus.
The goddess of love, beauty, fertility,
The most beautiful woman I ever saw.
She is plump, fullfigured barebreasted wide hipped with curly hair covered mons
Goddess.
My daughter will grow up to be sexual, poisonously beautiful
With long locks of goldenrodred hair, like her mother.
Greyblueblack eyes and shoulder freckles, like her father.
And if I can never become pregnant,
my sisters daughters will be my daughters
skin the color of cinnamon or chocolate, or vanilla ice cream
and just as sweet.
Men, women, boys, girls will pine over her, fall in love with her radiating skin
that will never look photoshopped, but always real.
As if the sun came down from the sky to give her the glow of all the light in the universe.
She will love her body the way that my mother taught me to love mine.
I will show her pictures of Whoopi Goldberg and America Ferrera and Margaret Cho and Marilyn Monroe
And she will know that beauty
is not a synonym
for skinny.
Beauty
is not a synonym for
sexy.
Beauty is not defined by size
or color
or texture, no.
It is defined by how she distributes
her love
and light
to everyone she meets.
no exceptions.
and she will never doubt that she is lovely.