I Promise To Be Pretty Tomorrow

A poem I wrote about my insecurities.

Sitting in front of a mirror for hours

Staring myself down

Bare, vulnerable

My head is pounding

Fingers that feel like they could bleed

Like unwinding a silver lining

I was turning off the lights and clearing the smoke

Re-visiting the reality of what life might only mean

No extensions to lengthen short-term beauty

No clothes to hide a peek-a-boo stomach that protrudes over hip bones

No make-up to mask any feelings

Just me and my comb

But wait… They're just braids, right?

Wrong

I can be my own demon 

Whisper to myself as I struggle to sleep at night

But I also struggle to stay awake

Scared of facing dreams and facing reality is a contradictory thought 

Maybe I'm insane for trying to escape this body

Exchange it for one I can run in without dragging it behind

Dance in without tripping over skin

Sleep in without dreaming of being skinny and waking up disappointed

Live in and feel alive

The only thing that keeps me from going insane is what I repeat to myself until it tickles the tip of the tongue

I promise to be prettier tomorrow

I promise to cover this yellow tint of skin so it shines a golden brown so rich that they can no longer classify me as a black girl

I promise to have locks of hair as long as a life-line fall around my shoulders and shade the tears on these cheeks so they look like holy water

I promise that next time I get stood up to dance I will pretend I forgot how to cry

I promise to be pretty

I promise, I promise, I promise

Sitting in front of a mirror for hours

Staring myself down

Bare, vulnerable

Wondering if there will ever be anything more to this

More than short eyelashes and stubby fingers

More than a girl who sometimes doesn't look like a girl

More than just another face

I want to be more than just another face

For the first time in a long time I saw that little girl

Who came home crying to her momma everyday cause the boys at school called her dark skin ugly

And I saw that little girl who may just come crying home to me everyday because the boys at school said her brown skin was nothing but a symbol of her inferiority 

And her brown eyes will turn to mud on a rainy day

But I will tell her that her knotted brown curls get tangled between her fingers when she is frustrated so she can't cover that beautiful smile that glistens when she is joyful 

That circles are never ending and neither is true beauty and that's why curvy is beautiful

`That maybe somewhere along the splinter between time and pretty and space and money there is a hope and a way and a girl and a prince

Not all princesses have to have a prince

I made up this excuse when I was in grade school and none of the boys liked me

And because I was able to see my flaws and imperfections as well as my adequacies, I could put labels on other girls around me

I called it the right kind of pretty

It's what separated being beautiful from being attractive

I was never the right kind of pretty

When I was young my flawless skin and chocolate eyes could be easily overlooked by short, dead hair that stayed in a ponytail when nothing was tying it

The right kind of pretty was the kind of girl the boys wanted to date first

And then someone in their league would be there to pick up the pieces of his heart and try to put them back together

I just ran out of hot glue and band-aids and apologies 

Sitting in front of a mirror for hours

Staring myself down

Bare, vulnerable

`Sometimes I just want to scream in the middle of a classroom

`“No you can NOT make a black joke”

“Why would you say that self-harm is just a trend to attract attention but waste money on over-priced swede shoes and burn your hair along with your individuality”

`“Maybe the reason I’m so loud all the time is because I’m tired of waiting my turn to be heard”

`“NO! I am NOT okay!"

`Sometimes I want to yell at the girls who come back from march break complaining about being sun burnt

I wish I could get sun burnt instead of sun… deep… fried?

Sometimes when I swallow my pride I pretend to choke just so he has a reason to rap his arms around me

Sometimes the white kids mask their face in brown paint and shoe shine and it's racist but black people drown their skin in bleach and call it’s beauty

Sometimes I wish guys wouldn’t just hit on me so I would fulfill their fantasy of “getting with a black girl"

Sometimes I wish I didn't have to be "pretty for a black girl”

Sometimes I wish I was just pretty

Maybe tomorrow

Reviews

[613]

Oh my goodness. This was so heartbreaking & beautiful all at the same time. I encourage you to polish this up a bit & submit it somewhere to be published. This is one of the best poems I've ever read in my life - & I've read quite a few.

I am so sorry you've had to deal with all of the things you listed above. But let me tell you one thing - you ARE beautiful. You sound beautiful. You write beautifully. You express yourself beautifully. You seem to have a beautiful soul. You cannot change the ignorance in other people or what they say about you, but you CAN change the way you feel about who you are on the inside & out & to make the world just a tad better by lessening the ignorance by your intelligence.

Wonderful job. You should be proud of yourself.

- Brittney