I’ve shown my body,
More times than I've gotten flowers.
What's crazy is,
I love flowers
And hate my body.

But you don’t,
You love my body.
It’s what pulled you in,
What made you even want me.

Not me,
Not the way I spill my dreams at midnight,
Not the way I trace constellations on fogged-up windows,
Not the sparkle in my eyes,
Not my heart.

Just the skin,
Just the shape,
Just something to hold,
Just something interesting.
Just something to ****

You may worship me,
You may make me favour my body,
You may treat me right,
And you may “love” me now.

But the beginning is just the same
And if I were to lose any charm or,
God forbid my looks.
You’d leave and never come back.

I hate my body
And yet,
I still wait for flowers.

Rain is pouring,
Ive never liked the rain.
It ruins beautiful days,
Leaving its gloomy stain.

I’ve never liked the rain,
It pulls me into bed.
The rain drowns it all out,
And I end up trapped in my head.

I’ve never liked the rain,
And the way it makes me feel.
How could I like something so pitiful,
I’ll never see its appeal.

I’ve never liked the rain,
Writing this poem, I now see.
I’ve never liked the rain,
Because rain is like me.

I put a stop
A full stop to all

The trees pass swish

Its shadow was good
Well while it lasted

Then came the sun

For once I stopped
To watch it fall

The cool breeze
Hitting my face dry

Saying hi and bye
All at the same time

Then the moon
Came the stars

A beautiful site
But I guess they would never understand
Each others beauty and fall

And i said this is it
I've watched enough

Conspire to inspire,
Inspire to admire,
Admire to aspire,
Aspire to set fire
To your demons
That conspire.

He played
with her hair
and poetry
untangled
every
"not"

Beautiful ugly reflection –
slipping into the depths of your heartbreak;
Do you still tally your breaths – gasping for air!
At times, we drift so far from the warmth of home,
a cosmic wonder; yet the cosmos cradles the remnants
of extinguished stars.

Would you light a cigarette – to mask the fierce truths
of your spirit; those weary hands still possess a gentle
caress.

A handshake fraught with shaky bonds – bond to your
insecurities; anchoring you in a realm of perpetual self-doubt.

                   You are worth infinitely more, my mirrored self.

My beauty  
I think I’ll always be at least a little repulsed by seeing my own reflection.  
It betrays me,  
Stares at me with my father’s eyes and my mother’s smile.  
Haunts me, embarrasses me, manipulates me,  
Forces me to face all those faces that came before mine,  
All the faces reminding me that I can’t change where I came from.  

My eyes are supposed to be beautiful,  
Big and brown and caring,  
Loving, intoxicating, inexorable.  
Though,  
I’ve never found any beauty in my father’s eyes,  
I find his relentless selfishness,  
His sadness,  
His stubbornness,  
His refusal to help himself escape the pain I know he’s always embedded deep into his ivory skin,  
It reflects in mine.  
I stare at a mirror,  
He’s the one who stares back,  
Reminding me that brown is not just a color that has the potential to be beautiful,  
But also the color of the selfish isolation I am doomed to endure.  

I don’t see beauty in my mother’s smile,  
I hear all the hateful words that passed her lips,  
Every biphobic or humiliating comment to keep me down, each reason why I will never be like the other children she knows.  
All the words screamed at me until I finally began to believe them,  
Encouraging me to make myself smaller,  
Make myself less me.  
Make myself hate every part of myself.  
I picture her in front of me,  
Her grip so tight on my wrists that I can feel the bruises forming, her nails digging in.  
Her face distorted by my held-back tears as she hisses at me,  
“Nasty.”  
“I wish I never had you.”  
“Unlovable.”  
“Unfixable.”  
I imagine her soft smile,  
The same smile she wore every time she
wore every time she swore she was proud of me,  
Twisted into the spitting image of hate and disappointment she won’t let me forget.  

I wish people wouldn’t search so hard for my beauty.  
I wish they wouldn’t take my face in,  
My features all stolen from  
Generations before,  
As a representation of my being.  
The big, brown eyes,  
The charming, uneven smile,  
Thick hair and tiny little freckles you can only see up close,  
Femininity, romance, perfectly imperfect to keep you interested,  
Just unique enough to make you think you’d never find a replacement.  
It’s all so pretty, so perfect, so pointless.  
It may captivate you,  
But it doesn’t tell the story of what lies beneath,  
All you’d have to endure to keep it in your life.  

It’s not easy to see beyond my face,  
Or my attitude,  
Or my fast comments,  
All designed to intrigue.  
It’s not easy to stare into my eyes and watch them fill with tears,  
Watch the way my face falls,  
Farther and farther from your perception of my beauty.  
It’s not easy to hold hands when they fidget,  
So violently you’d think there was lightning shooting around my entire body.  
So easy to admire,  
But not easy to love.  

I ache for the love of which I have been denied for so many years.  
I want to be beautiful for all that I’ve endured,  
All that I carry with me,  
The pain I’ve felt,  
The abuse I’ve suffered,  
The stories I’ve collected,  
All the broken pieces of old versions of me that I’ve slaughtered on my own accord.  
I want you to think that I am beautiful even though I can never accept it.  
I want you to still think that I’m beautiful when my skin is ripped to shreds.  
Torn by the blade in my own hands,  
When my eyes are sad and empty,  
When my smile eludes you.  
I want you to still think that I can be beautiful.  

I am so tired of bleeding my soul for people who just want to look at me,  
So sick of letting people in who see everything beneath the surface of my face as ugly.  
I am so much more than my body,  
So much more beautiful than my face,  
But it will never matter.  
People will always praise my father’s eyes and my mother’s smile,  
The traits soldered to me that brand into my mind,  
Infect my soul with all of their hatred, anger, and disgust.  
People may always call me beautiful, but just once, I want someone to find my beauty to be more than skin deep.