crumpled pages are the easiest to start on. they already have a built-in story, told in folds, ripples and creases. I can bat at the ideas in the air around me all night, demotivated to bother by the blank-eyed monitor beside me. but the wrinkled page invites me to move, to dance the tip of my pen over its lines, to rise and fall in cadence over the shapes of its imperfections.
it is easy to look at a beautiful thing and notice its flaws; it is much harder, but much more worthwhile, to look at something imperfect and see its potential for beauty. we are not all pretty, and we are certainly not all hot – but we can all be beautiful. there are certain types of beauty that are unavoidable, given the proper application of love, and these beauties often shine out of the tiredest, the saddest, the most blemished faces.
when we stare at our reflection in the tinted window, the belief we’d avoided all mirrors crumbling away like so much mental makeup, we look hard at what we wish was a flawless canvas and we paint on the ugliness. it drips from our self-loathing like acrylic, and we apply it liberally. if only we could gently hold forth what we are sure we must fix in ourselves, and let the light show us where the polish is not needed.
what use is hiding?
to pledge to live truly:
that is a burden I wish upon everyone
and expect from no one
but myself.
perspective puts people
in places you’re surprised to find them
like so far past a petty crush
at points of rants and secrets and sharing
to become an important daily presence
like splashing in the shallow end
kicking rocks and pretending to be weighed down
by your faults
like a distant memory of who you were
before you transformed into who you are
a pleasant reminder of human goodness
like caring for you in all the wrong ways
heavy with fear and hurt by your rejection
of a childhood loved but gone
like beautiful when you turn your head
just so, where no one else seems to look
instead of at their darker side
