Beautiful Before You

You said it till I learned it,

Till I knew each word by heart.

Till I couldn’t take a compliment

Without searching for the sharp part.

I changed beneath your watching eyes,

Still couldn’t get it right.

You’d find another thing to hate;

I’d lie awake all night.

Then I started doing it for you,

Tearing down what you hadn’t touched.

Standing there rehearsing

Why I’d never be enough.

I’m spiraling, spiraling, down again,

Your voice where my own should have been.

“Who could want you? Look at yourself.”

I heard it even when you weren’t around.

Scrubbing off my makeup, changing for the third time,

Looking for the woman you might finally treat right.

I couldn’t see a thing you hadn’t taught me to despise—

I was looking at myself through your eyes.

After you, the quiet scared me;

I kept waiting for the sound

Of you laughing at my happiness

And cutting me back down.

Then I danced across the kitchen

In a shirt you used to hate,

Caught my own smile in the window—

And I couldn’t look away.

Oh God, how could you say those things?

How long did I believe?

There was nothing wrong with being her.

There was nothing wrong with me.

I’m spiraling, spiraling, wide awake,

How much of my life did your words take?

Crying for the pictures I refused to be in,

Raging at the years I spent hiding my skin.

Every “you’re disgusting,” every “no one else would stay”—

None of it was true on any single day.

Now I see a woman I was taught to criticize,

And I want to hold her while she cries.

I WAS BEAUTIFUL BEFORE YOU.

Before I ever knew your name.

You didn’t give me worth to lose;

It never was yours to take.

I don’t have to thank the hurt

For the love I’m learning now.

I can mourn what you took from me

And still let myself out.

I’m spiraling, spiraling, into the light,

Laughing through tears for the first damn time.

Some days I still hear you; some days it gets loud,

But I know whose words they are now.

I’m keeping the pictures. I’m wearing the dress.

I’m done making beauty another test.

Without you here, I finally recognize

The woman who was beautiful the whole damn time.

You said nobody else would love me.

You never thought to count me.