Do you know what I went through? Do you know how wretched I felt? I feel like I did not deserve to eat, that should I deny myself a basic necessity in life to attain another more essential, beauty. That everything I was, everything I struggled for, all of my life could be summed up and judged within the first seconds you glance at me. That I only existed in discrete events in which I was seen, and not any other time when it really mattered, when I was really lovely.
That I could not love myself, unless I loved looking at myself, and I could not love, unless they loved to look at me. My ego lied in my looks, and my heart even at times would rely on looks. I could not speak or stand up, unless I was given permission. Even if I was given permission, I would not allow myself. How sorry I felt for my heart, for it was the well-spring of my love, my life, all I stood for, but I could not show it to anyone, and they did not wish to see it. In turn, it turned rotten, and began to show on my already scarred face, scarred from all the rubbing, scrubbing, exfoliating, and lathers of lotions I had bought to make myself lovely. In truth I was already lovely, and I knew it, but my job, my full-time every-day every hour every minute and every second was to make people know it, and that was to make them see it. But they never admit they saw it, they would lie. And I would try harder.
My sexuality? I had to strike a dangerous balance between looking fuckable but never asking for it. Games? Why do we even have to posit love like a game. Am I a game board in which he is suppose to win at? I was set up for the impossible. I grew too tired and too fed up, so I withdrew and denied myself from human relations all together. I thought that because I was strong, powerful, and lovely, that no one would love me. To have aspirations besides cooking or doing laundry for a man was pitiful for my youth and beauty. That I was going to do that some day, as if it was a life milestone and it was only a matter of time, a given. Seemed more like prison. But no, I was pressured to force for it to happen. When I realized this, I threw my hands up because of all the things I would give up, I would not give myself up. I would not give up what I've known my whole life, me.