I Am Beautiful

I AM BEAUTIFUL because I am five feet small.
And for everything else there are five-inch heels.
I am beautiful because I know songs from every decade since
the 1930s in two languages and I can almost always sing
along accurately.
I am beautiful because I read Tolstoy for fun and Cosmo when
I mean business.
I am beautiful because I am the crazy curled girl child
moving to the percussion beat of her own spirit like a maniac.
I am beautiful because I can throw my beer and tequila down
like a woman.
I am beautiful because I know exactly when to stop.
I am beautiful because I am too pretty to ever have to try too hard.
I am beautiful because poetry gives me electric goosebumps.
I am beautiful because the tigers still come to find me
sometimes in the night
although it has been one thousand two hundred and
seventy-nine nights
since they buried you in the ground, I always let myself cry.
I am beautiful because I can wear polka dots and pair them
with stripes
I am beautiful because I pretend I'm doing photo shoots and
arena concerts in the shower.
I am beautiful because I put on eyeliner to go to the
gas station.
I am beautiful because I am not capable of leaving anyone.
I am beautiful because I have become capable of letting people
leave me.
I am beautiful because I am not afraid to be ugly.
I am beautiful because I can parallel park on a two-way street.
I am beautiful because I am my father's daughter.
I am beautiful because I know a calculator is a little understood
sign from God
that we do not need to study Mathematics.
I am beautiful because I say I am.
I am beautiful because when I am sad, I buy myself a pack of pencils
and sharpen them till I feel better about myself.
I am beautiful because I know someone else is never the
solution to you.
I am beautiful for my yesterdays and my tomorrows but mostly
for this very second.
I am beautiful because my morning cup of coffee
completes me.
I am beautiful because I have dated bad boys and good boys
and ugly boys and pretty boys
only to finally realise all I needed was a man.
I am beautiful because I say I am.
I am beautiful beyond measure. I am a measure of beautiful.
I am a beautiful measure.
I am beautiful. I am.

(Pooja Nansi)