08/07/17
“Before Picture”
Did you take a before picture?
Why not?
How thoughtless.
Now you won't see.
Now you can't see,
See the difference,
The difference the make up makes.
It will make you beautiful.
It will make you average looking.
It will make you approachable.
It will make you decent to look upon.
It will make you beautiful.
It will make you decent.
Now you have no picture,
No picture to look back on.
No picture to emphasize your improvements.
No picture to highlight,
Highlight your newly covered flaws,
Flaws and imperfections.
No picture to remind yourself
How pretty you now are,
And how not you were before.
If I need a picture,
A picture to highlight my improved face,
A picture to highlight my imperfections,
Then I don't want one.
I want to be happy
With the face I had before the mask came on.
If I need a picture
To be all those things,
To be beautiful,
To be noticed,
To be gorgeous,
To be stunning,
To be decent,
To be close to average,
To be decent and not entirely disgraceful to look upon,
Then I don't want to be those things.
If I need a picture,
A picture to make me these things,
Then I don't want to be them,
For being these things infers
That I'm not enough,
That I must conform to societal normalities,
That I am nothing without the physical standards that this race we call humanity
Has come to expect and only respect,
That I am unworthy of respect or love without matching this new expected mask.
They say they've raised the standards,
Raised confidence.
They've only lowered the confidence,
And now I'm raising the bar.
I will not conform,
Conform to your
Standards and expectations.
I will not conform,
Conform to your
Sense of societal norms and acceptance and
Your expectations.
If this is what society has come to,
I'm disappointed
With what we've come to.
If this is what society has come to expect,
Then it's not an expectation I am going to at all make an effort to meet.
If I need a picture,
A picture to remind me of the flaws I hide,
Then I will not take this picture.
I'm proud of my flaws
That society wants me to hide.
This is my face,
And I'd rather keep MY face,
Not the face that
Society has come to demand from me.
Some demands
Cannot be fulfilled.
This will be one of those demands,
A demand that will not be completed.
Because I don't understand.
I don't understand
Why we have all become so hateful and judging.
I don't understand
The disgust that fills our hearts when we see someone who we believe doesn't meet society's view of beautiful.
If I can only be beautiful when I'm wearing a mask,
I'd rather be the ugliest thing alive.
If I can only be gorgeous when being fake and society's puppet,
Then I'd rather be the puppet who broke free from their string.
Society has a death grip,
A death grip that must be broken before it's too late.
Society will destroy itself with the standards it's come to expect.
This world will go down if beautiful flames
And be left in
Beautiful chaos.
And all because it's come to expect us to hide our stunning imperfections.
Society expects us to
Be perfect
And make ourselves perfect.
Society expects us to
Paint on a stranger's face everyday
To make our face look perfect
And starve ourselves until our bodies look just as perfect.
Little does society know
That perfection is what
Caused the downfall of Lucifer.
Lucifer was an angel,
But the perfection went to his head and made him feel superior to those mere mortals,
And forced him from Heaven,
And sent him plummeting to Hell.
Little does society know that
Perfection is the biggest imperfection.
Society spends so much energy
Hiding it's flaws.
But little does it know that in the meantime,
It's creating the biggest imperfection of all.
I don't want a picture,
If it's purpose is to remind me of the person that society is trying to hide,
Hide because of the shame,
Of the shame my face causes.
Well you know what?
Be ashamed.
Of yourself, society.
Be ashamed of the blindness you've caused.
If my face ashames you,
Society,
Then I'm proud.
Be ashamed.
I will not conform
To society's standards and
Definition of beauty.
I don't want the before picture,
Just my picture.
About the Creator
Emery Pine
I’m a poet with sprinklings of fiction. I write with the soul, so I hope you find it interesting and relatable
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