They told me that beauty meant:
Being tall with the right figure and definitely a light-skinned complexion
So, when he called me “ugly”, I believed without an iota doubt
Like a child on reflex responding to the call of her mother,
His words I succumbed to
After all I didn’t quite fit into the standard they had set.
The fence was too high yet they wondered why I tried to device a ladder to scale
They must have noticed how I walked because they whispered
as I passed with my head hung loosely, never looking up,
Just staring at my feet like I was looking for an object on the floor.
She’s a weirdo…Why is she so shy? Is that the proper way for a woman to walk?
I still do not get why they feigned surprised when I bombarded them with questions like:
How can I grow taller? – eat beans
How about the right figure? – hit the gym
And my complexion? – Girl, we’ve got bleaching creams
Yet their eyes judged me even after I took their advice.
Criticizing me for not loving myself enough
After they treated me like I meant nothing
An insignificant being, only good for the bin
They weren’t too bad at teaching though because their lessons I never missed
Beauty; they said with authority lies in the eye of the beholder.
That meant to me that my beauty was dependent on who was looking at me making my opinion irrelevant.
You may not get it, but to me, it meant that even though I took their advice religiously, never disobeying, I would still have to wait for someone whose eyes was approving enough to tell me that I’m beautiful before I actually would be beautiful.
I don’t get it. So they set the standard and still have to be the judges? I give up.
“I make all things beautiful in my time, all things I make beautiful in my time”.
So I’m supposed to just sit here and wallow in self-pity
Till the time is right for me to radiate with beauty?
“Who said you aren’t beautiful already?, woman, who have you been listening to?
Isn’t it devastating that one whom I took 9months of my precious time to design
Has the guts to look back at me saying..i didn’t do a good enough job
Because someone said something like that that doesn’t even make sense?..
How do you expect them to see the beauty I have placed all over you when you haven’t even recognized it yourself?
When you were made, I had no intention for anyone to judge you based on a standard. I made each and everyone of you different from the other just so my majesty can be recognized. I am beauty and I say you are beautiful
Get up, look in the mirror. At each spot, every wrinkle and slight default.
Adaora, Adaobi, Obiageli, Iye, You are beautiful”.
So your words, they doesn’t sting me anymore
If the one who made me sees me as beautiful and wonderfully made,
This may sound quite harsh but sorry, your opinion is irrelevant and I won’t change anything about how I look just so you can approve of me.
I am beautiful and so are you.
