face value

people were always telling my mother what a beautiful daughter she had. she would plan for the grocery shopping to take twice as long as it should because so many people stopped to comment on the little brown girl in the basket. i was famous.

by second grade, i'd had my waist-length hair cut into an awful mullet (i know i asked for a bob!) and my adult teeth had begun to grow in crookedly.  i was a new kid in a hillbilly school, so my brownness was no longer exotic, just strange. i stopped existing.


the ideas of beauty and ugliness should be opposites. for me, they are close neighbors, separated by a very fine line. one look in the mirror, and my face is almond eyes, a noble nose, and a tiny rosebud mouth. a second glance reveals poisoned skin, yellow teeth, and a masculine chin. i don't even want to think about my cheeks. my perception mirrors the wicked queen in Snow White, shifting from the (al)most beautiful woman in the kingdom, to a haggard old woman.


i can't keep all this judgment for myself, can i? of course not. every woman i see is subject to a watered-down version of this criticism. 


i realized today that i have a new weapon to use against these women. i look at them and consider if their attractive faces would hold up under obesity. most of them wouldn't. this makes me feel better.


i know, it's sick. still, i doubt that i'm the only person to play these games.