Monster

Self-esteem is confidence in our worth and abilities. It's how we value and perceive ourselves in our private and public lives. The word “self” has been lost in translation because our sense of identity as a society subjects us to only what others think of us, leaving our private lives disrupted due to others' judgment. Social media has disrupted our privacy even further, leaving us most vulnerable to what everyone perceives by the pictures we share. Now our insecurities have been capitalized by companies owning our data and propping up images of others we wish to emulate.

I’ve looked deep inside my being only to recognize how much I hated the image on the outside. Suddenly, I felt there was no meaning to my being and that I was only second to the Anglo-European images of beauty put onto me.

I grew up believing that I could be anything.

As small as my world was, my parents often told me I could be anything I wanted. Of course, they were speaking career-wise rather than focusing on identity. Despite often seeing negative and bizarre stereotypes of black boys on TV, I did not want to transform myself into these images. I was afraid of the single story written repeatedly, and I wondered how I could be different and rewrite the story.

So instead, I began to compare myself to others.

I looked at the black boys I went to school with and paid attention to how they walked, spoke, what they wore, and how they wore it. I often repeated most of the things they said so that they could befriend me and not question me.

But it never worked.

I’m neurotypical, so I often wanted to be part of the “in” crowd, have friends, and be accepted. However, I've always had horrible conversation skills because I was so shy and awkward and didn't know how to express myself truthfully. This “follower” mentality is what I thought was normal for my age and how I could prove I was black enough for people to like me. So, I didn't see a problem with it. I soon learned that everyone around me came with cliché connotations, and trying to fit into these boxes was extremely limiting.

So, I started to imitate whiteness (or what I believed was accepted).

I started to rebel against my given identity to submit to what I believed was right and would force others to see me as an individual and not the singularity of my blackness. I didn’t realize that this would push me so far into mental isolation and warped ideas of beauty. It felt like a dark descent into forced normality.

Then I realized I was gay… but never “came out” to friends or family.

I don’t believe in coming out. What was always there doesn’t need to be reintroduced to the world for people to accept. I’ve already had to accept myself, so others' approval seems unnecessary.

But realizing this about my sexuality made me feel like something was wrong. I was bombarded with images of whiteness in heteronormativity, but I also saw these occurring images in cisgender queer spaces online, especially amongst gay men. The objectification of gay men, along with the negative ideas that we are only sexual objects, plus the hierarchy of physical attractiveness being the measure of our self-worth, only isolated me again–further shattering my already destroyed self-esteem.

I didn’t know how to be black, and I didn’t know how to be gay. I felt lost within society’s barriers and never-ending labels to categorize me. If I wasn’t one thing, then I was another. If I wasn’t right, then I was wrong.

I started taking pictures of myself and realized I was not the beauty standard. It seemed that radical expressions of blackness were not a part of this “standard” at all. Because aesthetics were all I knew, I slowly used these pictures to accept myself as I am. I had no idea how art influenced our minds, but I was intuitively re-claiming my sense of self.

I wanted to go deeper and desecrate everything people knew about me to reach my inner core, also known as my true self. I started to rebuild my identity through selfies. Not me standing in front of a mirror or only when I’m out with friends but pictures where I’m in my natural state in the present moment.

As small of an act as this was, it felt honest and raw. I regained control of my body. I could choose how I wanted to see myself disregarding all ideas of what I should look like. As I observed myself creating new identities in these photos, I soon merged my masculine and feminine egos. It was not only in how I looked but in how I moved. I was able to visualize multiple versions of myself underneath my public persona.

This was my inner core, my soul in pictures. This sacred mental temple was where I rebuilt my self-esteem as male, queer, black, and everything in between.

Being all these things together is the monster I’ve trapped inside my mind, only now realizing how deceptively beautiful it was.

I’m not muscular. I don’t have the perfect jawline. I’ve cut all my hair off (and cut it off again every time it grows back). I don’t have colored eyes. I’m not that tall. And I don’t have white skin.

I am part of the outcasted group of ‘unaesthetic’ beauty. I’ve always imagined my idea of blackness as divinely loving society’s version of “ugly.” I’ve found radical expression of love and acceptance of what is weird as angelic and holy.

Being black is the power to destroy and rebuild myself based on the energy vibration of my inner core through the color of my skin. Self-esteem is the confidence in my ability to remain open to change and spiritually transcend this physical experience while remaining unapologetically human.