Some days I feel like I’m just

  painting shimmer

  over something everyone already decided

  was unlovable.

  Like a pig with lipstick,

  bleeding effort for an audience

  that never claps.

  I smear on confidence

  the way someone might smear on armor—

  thick, uneven,

  hoping no one notices the shaking hands beneath it.

  I arch my back.

  I soften my voice.

  I angle my face toward the light

  like I’ve studied the choreography of beauty

  but never learned the steps.

  It feels like pretending—

  like wearing someone else’s skin

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  and praying no one looks too closely

  at where the seams refuse to hide.

  I walk into rooms and wonder

  if the world sees me trying.

  If they smell the desperation

  under the perfume,

  the cheap courage in the eyeliner,

  the quiet begging in the way

  I hold my chin too high

  to keep the tears from escaping.

  I want to be hot.

  I want to be magnetic.

  I want to be the kind of beautiful

  people turn into poetry.

  But most days

  I feel like an apology in heels,

  a silhouette that almost works

  until the light hits wrong.

  Still—

  I show up.

  Half brave, half pretending.

  Still hoping one day the mirror

  stops fighting me.

  And maybe that’s the strangest kind of courage:

  putting on the lipstick anyway,

  even when the world whispers

  that beauty doesn’t belong to me.

  I wear it.

  I walk in it.

  I dare the world to look at me—

  because even if they never see it,

  even if I never believe it—

  I’m trying to become the version of myself

  who no longer needs pretending.