To be beautiful

I was never her, the girl that fit into society’s definition of beautiful. I look at TV Series, Movies and pictures on the web and find myself seeking to alter a part of my temple so that I can become her. I look at her thinking wow she is beautiful, translating to I am not. We are not taught to love ourselves as we are, to appreciate the beauty in our uniqueness. So I add and alter till I conform, and ultimately hate myself even more as the façade to fit into your world becomes my greatest burden.

 There is a template of ‘black girl’ out there that my mould does not seem to conform into. My sometimes well-articulated words have had me called intelligent so I took that to hide the ‘smart-mouthed black woman’ that some may been brave to call me. Yet as expected that mask of intelligence failed me. So maybe my mind was not the answer so I brought it down to my heart and expressed my heart and felt at the title ‘angry black woman’. Of course another point to add to my archives of failures. My body I knew to never be the answer for ‘ugly black woman’ I had already claimed.

So, what does it mean to be beautiful?

What does it mean to be black?

The colour of my skin should truly and completely not mean a thing, but it does. It has scared and shaped me and has done even worse to history. Being black, being female has always left in awe:

“For a black girl you really speak English well….”

“For a black girl you really are smart…”

“For a black girl you really are beautiful…”

Why have the lines been drawn?

When will it be okay for me to be me?

Who gets to choose whether or not I can be defined as beautiful?

These questions are not mine, these are ours. You beautiful black girl, who wants to be the first in your family to go to university; you who has fallen in love with someone of outside of your race; you who wants more out of your life than only being someone’s than someone.

Powerful, Beautiful, Smart black girl these are your questions.  

Inspired by Viola Davis

The Beauty of PAIN

I have had the privilege of spending the weekend with my siblings a privilege I call it for that is what it is. I have been struggling to figure out what my blog is truly about, for to label myself an inspiration was too big of a title. A writer a word I feared to call myself for I am not worthy of such a role, a poet a title to I have run from.so who am I and what am I doing what do I have to give... simply put; myself. I do not have any materialistic gifts to bear I have heart passion beauty that’s me.

I have been beautifully moulded by life and all its trials how and when I know not but I do know. something has been altered in my heart. A caged bird set free a voice finally uttered. my brother said something that left me awed, "I love the beauty that we find in the pain we have been through". those words etched some carvings in me.  that was one of those things that had you gasping that really truly honestly all that we go through have gone through and will still go through is not in vain not for nothing.

The thought I often have is that all we go through difficult or not is a reminder to breathe, the hard knocks of life possess beauty and grace. Engraved with the type of lesson that can change my life. I have friends, family, and acquaintances that I hold dear, which I watch from afar and wonder what moves them. I see their significance and miss my own. 

For the lack of a narrative of my own I steel EE Cummings' words 'here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart'- I am someone. Not only, someone's sister, daughter, friend, leader, but someone, an individual worth something. I have some choices to make difficult ones every day. Will I speak? Will I pursue my dreams? Will I have the courage to really write what is in my heart? Will I?

I am a Writer...

my story a working progress

my scars are the grammar

my experiences the intro

my victories the conclusion

I am a Writer...

It has taken me so long to say that to myself least to you. Pain has changed me, hurt me but, I have chosen to find the beauty in its mist for to simply, will it away and have its presence a waste of life is a tragedy A Writer I am but, I am more, what exactly, I still push to discover.