#be ugly

Girlhood isn't gentle, graceful, or delicate. 

Its grim, grotesque, and down-right destructive; 

It's 3-day old make up and being drenched in sweat.  

It's having ibuprofen for breakfast and chasing it with a black coffee with a huge amount of splenda.

it's in the connection . girls dont see girls, they see souls.

It's poking and prodding at your skin until it bleeds. Even when you don't draw the blood by your own hand; God will. you know you are damned from the beginning. 

It's the constant ache of being alive but the perverse pleasure of seeing how far you will spiral. 

It's the masochistic joy in hunger and devotion—putting pieces of yourself into everything and getting promised nothing in return. 

It's when the street lights look like stars.

It's when you use sparkly glue and your best craft supplies to put yourself back together.

But girls do what they do best; preform.  

They hang on by their mangled manicured nails, cover their decaying flesh in glitter, and drench themselves in perfume so sweet it will rot your teeth. 

You can be ugly, plain, lopsided, weird, glaring, tacky, messy, and disfigured. Anytime, all the time.

And still be lovable, valuable, wanted, appreciated and treasured.

Many times we women are told that crying makes us weak and that we should stop overacting and be more mature, that we are fragile and should act in a certain way in a relationship. Princesses Don't Cry talks about how suppressing your feelings is really unhealthy and by doing so we are hurting ourselves, that sometimes it is okay to cry, It doesn't matter if it's because of something important or just because of a man who broke our hearts, that doesn't make you weak.

Woman's World talks about the differences in women's lives, it talks about the inequality that women experience in their daily lives, it talks about experiences that we have all gone through and that have left us feeling bad. But it also talks about how change is coming and that it doesn't matter if we have to fight, we will achieve a world of equality.

No matter what many people say, all over the world and depending on the culture there are impossible standards that women must meet if they want to be considered beautiful, established standards that are NOT "only used by women to judge each other" and "things that men don't pay attention to." Scars to Your Beautiful talks about insecurities and self-harm (even if they are not called that) that a girl can go through in order to be beautiful, talks about how thanks to impossible standards we cannot see our own beauty and affirms and supports women to be themselves, because you are beautiful just the way you are and it is not fair that they ask you to change to adapt to others.

or perhaps, the blood straining up your lungs,

splattering the marble and fitted sheet

with amaranthine imperfections? 

There are infinite ways to be imperfect,

a thousand flaws to cultivate

and I draw up every warped

and twisted part of myself

into the light.

And instead of hammering 

myself into what I was meant to be,

I build myself a sculpture

of ugly, of jarring, of gruesome.

Look on, look all, on what a monstrosity 

I have created

Inktober day 14 - clock