i spent the first couple years of my youth
with my arms crossed tight around my stomach,
arranging myself in the mirror to see which ways
would make others see me how i wanted them to,
twisting my body into shapes it wasn’t designed for,
trying to find some semblance of beauty.

you kiss the creases where my body folds in on itself,
the marks where the skin on my thighs
stretches apart, not quite reaching itself,
the tangled mess that is my hair,
and you still find it somewhere within yourself
to tell me that i am the very semblance of beauty.