I was supposed to be beautiful. To be beautiful is always the point.
In the beginning, hopes were high. I have no doubt they had the best of intentions. Every part of me was born from the things they loved most. The dream was clear, their control absolute. Beauty was inevitable.
Or so they thought.
Early on, things seemed to go wrong. No matter what they tried, I couldn’t fit into their well laid plans. Big ideas wilted in my presence. The little pieces of me they adored only clashed when brought together. Their imagination’s eye was blurry at best.
They worked hard to fix me, dismantling me over and over again. With each iteration, the results were more appealing, but I had to be reconfigured more than once. My edges were fraying. I couldn’t keep my shape with so much extra handling.
Every part of me became a problem to be solved. They reconsidered and reimagined every aspect of my being, refusing to accept me as I was. Compromises had to be made. They clung to the hope that in the end, I would be good enough.
When they finally decided on my true colours, I was allowed to grow. Though I was far from a triumph, I was no longer a failure. They were confident that eventually I would be able to flirt with any discerning gaze. One day, I might be called pretty.
On the verge of completion, I was laid bare for their final assessment. The mess of my embattled insides, ready to be buried behind pristine outer layers, exposed the full scope of my struggle. They marvelled at the evidence of their painstaking labour and forgave their imperfect technique. But as they surveyed the body of work, they no longer saw a reflection of their own ambitions. They saw a revelation. My overlooked underside had become the true beauty.
The delicate, frazzled version of myself so thoroughly seduced my maker, they committed to find a way for me to thrive in this perilous mode. But surely, I could not be asked to exist in the world like this. It would inevitably lead to my unraveling. Turned inside out, I would be too fragile, forever disarmed. Without proper covering, every touch would cause incremental, irrevocable damage. The chaos of my inner workings was only meant to sustain the ordered, outward view.
And yet here I am. My defences have been shored up as much as beauty could allow. I have not been made invincible, but if handled gently, I can withstand more than you think.
