I used to think I was ugly.
that was the message I got from society
because I am fat,
because I am old
because I am not a gurly girl.
because I was looking at society’s mirror,
and not God’s.
It was my skinny friends
who began teaching me I was beautiful.
It was when a dear friend was moving
and she wanted a picture of the gang.
four skinny girls and me.
I wanted to hide
and they wanted me smack dab in the middle.
What they said was my beauty
would last long past theirs
because mine was internal.
A friend of mine and I were talking
and her words struck me.
“Your poetry makes you beautiful.”
it’s not my poems themselves,
but what happens within me
as I write them.
Then I began to realize
that it is not what I create
whether it is a meal,
or a blanket,
or a poem
that makes me beautiful,
but the process of creating,
that helps me become beautiful
It is the time with the master of creating
which gives me time to learn and grow,
to evolve and transform.
to become more beautiful
and to let that beauty shine
through me into the world.
What do you do to become beautiful
