Somewhere in the world someone finds you beautiful

Dear Dean,

I grew up in a country where beauty is confined to a certain aesthetic: fair skin, straight hair, long legs and thin body. I am brown with untamed curls standing 5 foot flat with my thick thighs, in other words I’m unattractive by my people’s standards. I’ve struggled to breathe easy in my own skin, as even my mother regularly tells me I have to pinch my nose everyday so that it would stop being flat. On the rare occasions people called me beautiful, I always believed they said it because they found me kind towards them, or because my smile had a particular warmth to it. Sometimes, I would honestly feel downright ugly, and would be annoyed with the fact I have a twin, like why did God create a duplicate of something unpretty?

My perception of my own appearance changed however, that day you asked me if I was dating anybody, and I said “Hell no, I’m unattractive on this side of the planet.” to which you responded, “have you seen you? if you were here in Edinburgh, you will be snapped up.” I honestly googled what ‘snapped up’ meant, as it isn’t exactly a phrase that is used here in Manila. At that moment I realized, not only is your English a bit different from what I know, your eyes see my face in a different way as well, and the good kind of different. On separate occasions, I’ve also been called lovely by an Israeli gentleman and been told I have a beautiful color by workmates from Calgary and Minnesota. So I guess somewhere in the world I’m beautiful, I guess most of us just find beauty in things we do not often see. Like how we would go in awe of snow or autumn leaves, and you from your side of the world long for sun-filled tropical islands.

P.S. You still haven’t shared your picture, but it hardly matters, your kindness reassures me you are a beauty.

Regards,

Tiny

Kissed by the Sun

You have oceans for hair, no, not the blue calm peaceful kind,

more like  waves of a  distressed black ocean in the middle of a storm,

reaching down your body , down, further down

until it escapes the chaos of your head,

and your body is too covered with their waves

that people often wonder if you come to howl at the moon at night,

a creature of the evening, a peculiarity, not a woman

and often times the vessel that is your body does not fit

in these society constrained textiles, somehow

there is always too much body to fit in what they call clothes,

somehow even though you are covered they make you feel shame

but despite all these you’ve got eyes  that can hold the morning sky,

and can mirror all the luminescence of the evening,

and even though your nose does not stand tall

and your neck couldn’t hold your chin up high

you have got those lips that tell the world for certain

there is more of you to love, and though most

voices will tell you otherwise, you are beautiful

your body is a landscape of bountiful curves,

made out of hills, and mountain ranges.

You are a mountain among valleys and plains,

And they can call you burnt, too dark, but I prefer to think that

You’ve been kissed by the sun, and would you ever envy their

Snow-covered complexions

when the sun has loved you more

when the sun loved you  enough to leave imprints of love

on your skin.