What am I doing wrong?

I'm different now.

I'm not ugly anymore... right?

Please answer me.

I won't know until you say so.

I put on the dress you picked out,

I cut my hair the way you told me,

disguised my face in layers of powder

mixed with deception.

So... why are they still laughing at me?

It's still the same;

nothing's changed.

You say it's because

I'm not trying hard enough.

I ask you what it is I am trying to do.

If it isn't me, and it isn't you,

who is it exactly?

The popular girls made fun

of my lanky arms and legs.

Five years later, you look at me

and say with a twinge of disgust

how I used to be so skinny.

Being underweight was terrifying,

I agreed.

But it wasn't

the middle-school yearbook

that earned your disapproval,

it was the work of another five years

on my once-prominent bones.

I was not born

to love my appearance,

But taught to believe the cruel truth

about what it was to be me.

What desirable was,

I learned I was not;

I’m beautiful to someone,

just not to you.

I’ve known all too well

what being in love is,

all the while

trying to convince myself

that he must love me too,

or why would he be here at all?

Little did I know that

I was an easy target.

I’d been hurt before,

and boys like them

always know just what to say

to girls like me.

Teach me something I can use.

That sticks and stones

would break my bones,

but words would do far worse.

That words give no warning,

show not a shred of mercy for

their victims.

So do not point and call me pitiful

when I cannot accept a compliment,

Instead, try to

open your heart to the girl

who was called “boy” for years,

all because of such an

inconsequential feature

as her eyebrows.

While girlfriends in high school

talked about boys,

I sat in the corner

wondering when my turn would come.

I shouldn’t expect people to love me,

but I should keep quiet

and take what I can get.

And when a boy showed interest in me

for the first time,

my excitement was dissolved

by others' doubts,

surrounded by chantings of,

“Are you sure?”

Two years would pass

before I realized that I had been,

but that he, on the other hand, had not.

I wished time and time again

to be pretty,

for others to see me as a person

rather than an art project

that someone had failed

to scrap years ago.

Still, I hear every now and again,

“You are beautiful.”

To this day, I do not know

where this voice comes from,

yet this disembodied voice

still chants.

No, I am not a princess,

and I am not perfect,

but somewhere,

I believe that I am beautiful.

While others were awarded aces,

I was dealt the Queen of Hearts.

Someday,

when the children grow old,

when the smoke

from the cootie-war clears again,

they will realize that

there never was a game to be played.