An Open Letter Between a Mother and Daughter: Am I Beautiful?
What people deem as beautiful in 2018 is a million dollar question that many are struggling to answer for themselves, even through adulthood. Raising a child in this technology driving world can be hard on both the parent and child. Check out this unique twist and exchange of an open letter between a mother and her teenage daughter.
Am I beautiful?
Beauty…
My inner beauty locked in the cage of perfection.
My reflection to dark to be seen from rejections…darkness
The partial or total absence of light.
Well, the absence of light is permanent on my skin!
Like the ugly duckling, it didn’t know it was born ugly,
Until it had to run away from society’s flawed form of paradise.
Am I beautiful?
My hand once grabbed an exquisite rose.
The rose repelled thorns attacked my hand,
Leaving the blood of grotesqueness to drain down my fingers.
As I watched it linger
The blood from my fingers slowly dripped,
Taking the mockery of my beauty that society claims as my DNA.
Am I beautiful?
Why does my hair grow up and not down?
Why does it shrink every time water visits town?
The ones immune to darkness makes a mockery of my hair.
How it’s a haystack.
How it’s afraid of vacuous water.
How it’s a distraction from my professed grisly face.
Sorry, but I can’t make the achievement of hiding my race.
From society’s abhorrent hell of transgressors.
Am I beautiful?
Why don’t you tell me, oppressors?
You seem to be so infatuated on my so-called flawed beauty,
That your beauty contaminated with ignorance of racial prejudice of you forefathers
So, am I beautiful?
Well, I sure don’t need an answer from an oppressor who lacks my strength of beauty.
By: Anyiah Lobley
Are you beautiful?
Beauty Is in the eyes of the beholder. In other words, beauty cannot be judged by a person’s feelings or opinions. What one person finds beautiful or admirable may not qualify to another. Because of this fact, I made up in my mind that I would make sure society did not dictate or control images that my daughter thought were beautiful. I wanted to be an example of beauty and why our black was beautiful.
Our inner beauty was locked in a cage when the first slave ship left Africa.
It was there in the mind that our oppressor set the stage.
For us to believe that we were worthless and they were worth more.
It was there that queens developed the notion that they were meant to be whored.
It was there that we were beaten and screamed, at night we no longer dreamed and slowly we lost our esteem.
Are you beautiful?
I remember the day you were born and I held you in my arms. My finger slid down your cheek as my mind became a playground, a workshop. Is she beautiful? I wonder what the world will see, her eyes are like black rubies, I wonder if they will see. Is my daughter beautiful? Hair the color of black ice, thick and full of luster. Your hairs cluster like a sea of waves. Is my daughter beautiful? Your skin naturally silk-like caramel, God’s organic tan, sun-kissed by God, not by the sun or sand.
Am I beautiful?
It’s because of you that I did away with the fake weaves. Our hair grows up, natural crowns strong like a statue, thick as thieves. Full of twist, turns, curls, and zigzags. Like a world of adventure, why do others get mad? My crown of thorns full of versatility and stability with options to change. Our hair, like our bodies curvy, shapely, voluptuous. Our crowns cousins to our bodies very presumptuous.
Am I beautiful?
Yes, you don’t need eyes to see. You stand on the shoulders of giants so at night you can dream. Your beauty is not depicted from social media or a movie screen. Your beauty influences and leaves a lasting impression like Augustine.
By: Shenita Lobley
