Hi!
I decided to take a celebrity to write this "story", but I know that this major issue touches pretty much everyone one way or another.
The point of this text is not to make you feel bad about who you are or the way you perceived others. On the contrary, I only did this because it hurts me to see people think so badly of themselves and wish they could be the ideals society tries to sell us through TV and commercials.
You are beautiful no matter what you look like! Physical beauty is a matter of taste. Ugliness is a meaningless word.
You never chose to look the way you do. That is why acceptance of your physical appearance is the hardest part of loving yourself.
But, there is something special in each of us which makes us attractive, perfect to someone else.
PLUS,
I believe people should judge you for your personality, because that is the way you chose to be. You decided to behave in a certain way and people should love you for these choices you made rather than ideals that aren't representative of what we, as human beings, truly are.
Love yourselves people! Be true to who you are and don't be afraid, because the fact that each and everyone of you is different is what makes you so lovable, so special! If everybody becomes the same, where will creativity and uniqueness be?
Love yourselves people! Because if you can't even find a thing great about yourself, how to you expect others to find them?
Anyway! Enjoy and feel free to leave reviews. I am always open to discussion!
The man is sitting on a leather chair, his imposing legs crossed. A wide smile is plastered across his face as he tilts a microphone close to my mouth awaiting an answer.
My mind is empty and yet, I already know what he expects me to respond. The lines are there, perfectly organized in my brain, ready to be spit out into the wild.
A part of me tries refraining the parting of my lips, my tongue slowly swells, in an attempt to block out the blow of the words I am about to pronounce.
But it is part of the game, isn't it?
These simple words, whether they reflect my true opinion, who I really am deep within doesn't matter.
The camera points its odious red eye at me. It's trying to catch my every movement. Therefore, I have to keep the mask on.
I bite my lip, trying to keep it from trembling. My eyes are wide open, because the eyelids know that once they shut, water will pour and explanations will be needed.
I hide my hands in the pockets of a borrowed suit. The whole piece of clothing is flashy and skinny. It doesn't stretch on the important parts and makes me feel exposed. It also attracts the attention of people. The sweat drowning my skin in cool horror is hidden by the numerous layers of white powder covering my face.
I am afraid to look in the reflective lance, thinking that what I might see won't please me.
I actually know it won't please me.
I put on my smug look and stretch my lips wide in a fake smile. My teeth are showing therefore, the illusion of happiness is irreproachable.
My body enters a trance and as I am not master of my body anymore, the words splurge, fill in the blanks, just like a dictation learned by heart.
The crowd goes wild. Everybody seems happy of my answers.
But am I?
As an object, I guess I cannot count in the people who felt lamentably sorry for the ones I lied to.
Anyway, since when did my opinion, the real one, mattered?
Since when did people feel any interest in the ordinary boy?
Alienated.
Lonely.
Me.
The one who only wished to be seen and loved for who he truly is?
From the moment I became that beast in a cage, I understood.
I comprehended that what I really was would never be enough.
I processed the fact that my true nature wasn't of grand interest. It wasn't déjà-vu, it was just something people didn't feel like seeing.
Because it was ordinary. It didn't represent the dreams and fantasy I sold.
When I was me, I wasn't anything special.
But my character was everything.
He was the ideal. The impossible.
The lie I made myself believe for so long.
The corruption which was slowly taking away the real me.
I was a tool, a puppet meant to be controlled into doing its masters wishes.
And the worst of all was the love the puppet got, from being empty inside.
But being everything on the outside.
Yet, nobody was human enough to notice the interior was slowly rotting, its repressed feelings slowly ending it day by day.
Why did I keep pretending?
Me, the object, the puppet, received love and attention, everything a normal human being would have ever wished for. And yet, I couldn't appreciate it at its just value, because I was just a mere corpse, a beautiful mannequin, unable to feel.
Who was I?
I was an orphan who's name now belonged to a stranger.
I couldn't,t even recognize myself when I looked in the mirror.
I saw pictures and bore at the stranger wearing my name.
The numerous touches, modifications, made me question who was the man I was staring at.
Was I really that unattractive, for people to change my overall look so drastically?
People were crying over the melody that rang on the stage, understanding its deep meaning, but never thought it also applied to the people performing it.
I was a beautiful product.
Meant to last for its time, being thrown away someday.
Just like garbage.
-X-
The show was over.
The cameras were off.
I was alone and as I reached and tried to take off the mask, it stuck to my face.
I panicked as I pulled at my strings, trying to take it off, trying to finally release my true self, but it seemed, it was slowly vanishing, replaced by that cold bad boyish product.
That sex symbol I represented.
I pulled and pulled at the strings of my mind trying to bring back an image of the person I used to be. That someone I still wished deep down to be.
The human being that was left alone to rot in a dark corner of my mind, only summoned when nobody could see.
Straining my muscles, I pictured a small boy, shy, practicing in a dark corner of his room. Signing his vocal cords out, dreaming of being surrounded by people someday.
The end of his loneliness.
Friends from all around the world.
Ordinary on the outside, but everything within.
This little guy, tender and passionate.
The type of person that would stand up for the people he cared about.
Someone that would spend time listening to other's problems forgetting his own in the process of finding solutions for the sake of others.
Always second, and yet never fully and truly loved at his right value.
He was the one that did everything on his own.
Never uttered complaints or a word.
He was the one who struggled at school.
The one who might have looked foolish at first glance, but never fully understood his true form of intelligence.
His faculty to understand others' pain and transform it into something beautiful, music.
As he suffered alone, he watched others smile and thought: Maybe this is what happiness is.
He was the guy that was always ready to be used and thrown away when he had grown useless.
He was scared to end up alone.
And he still is.
This guy is now a man.
Terrified, as he cannot make the difference between the truth and the lie, confused even between himself.
Even though he denies it.
This wonderful person makes jokes about the fact that he will grow old, his house empty.
Unmarried.
People laugh.
People don't take him seriously.
And yet, as he looks at the empty sky at night, starless, he thinks about his future, uncertain.
He looks around, always in the shadow, waiting for someone to unravel the truth.
But years go by and nothing changes.
He hides, afraid that once he shows what he truly his, people will flee him, just like it used to be in the beginning.
The little boy he used to be slowly disappears as he becomes what people love.
An illusion.
A product.
Emptiness.
-X-
They call him an angel, surrounded by a halo of white light.
The shining blinds them, erases his pain from their eyesight.
They are deaf to his cry for help.
A glamour.
I thought this must be what love feels like…
But was it really love that inhabited people when they looked at him, or was it lust?
Where they really caring about the broken, now man, behind the mask or the unbreakable character standing confidently on the stage?
Where they fooled by the layers of makeup, the fancy clothes, the fictional boyfriend he represented?
If he walked up on the street, would people even recognize him?
Unmasked and for once true to himself?
Would they still fetishize the poor man, far from the superficial perfection?
-X-
You know my name.
My age.
Where I come from.
What I like.
What I dislike.
But if I asked you what is it that you liked so much about me…
What would be your answer?
Would it be my voice?
My smile?
My muscles?
How could it be my personality…
If I don't even know who I truly am?