I've been having a lot of Drew feels lately.

~o~

I never thought being a daughter of Aphrodite would mean I would be destroying love instead of influencing it. I never thought I'd end up like this.

My mother spreads love, the feeling , the warmth of it all. And we shatter it, like china breaking on stone. It was never my intent to be who I am now. I just got railroaded into it. I ran into the subconscious trap set by our own minds. I got caught up in the glamour, the flawlessness of it all. They way everyone would look at us with envy. We felt beautiful. We were beautiful.

Once we stepped through the veil of the vanity that surrounds us, we were trapped. We didn't know it at first, we were sidetracked. By red lipstick and that sickly sweet perfume that clouded our noses until we never looked back at what we used to be. Average. Imperfect. Back when we weren't losing ourselves in the glimmering smiles and perfectly plucked eyebrows.

There's a standard, a stereotype, for us. Slut, they say. Whore, they call out. We brush it off, our voices smooth and clear as we tear them down, insecurity by insecurity. Our voices, they enchant those listening. Persuasion. Our greatest weapon. Our voices laced with it, putting us on our pedestal where we were treated like we were radiance in its purest form. Treated like we're beautiful.

We lost ourselves in the control of it all. Manipulation. Our greatest strength. We make others do our dirty work for us. Our glossy, perfectly painted nails would break if we didn't.

Mirrors were our closest friends. We never realized they were double sided, ready to stab you in the back at the slightest instance. Just like us. No we didn't know of their cruelness, not until the lipstick turned to black and the perfume dripped off. Not until our nails broke and the paint chipped away. Not until the mascara dripped down our faces leaving trails of black. Or when our voices wavered and broke, the smooth, persuading tones gone. We didn't know.

Except, it wasn't us. It was only me.

I tore down the love around us, not them. I was the one who covered us in vanity. I got lost in the glitz of it all, the feeling of beauty. The children of Aphrodite were never trapped, I was. I tore others down when they so much as looked at me the wrong way. Tearing people down and building myself a pedestal of their insecurities. Forcing them to be ugly. Taking all the beauty for myself. Manipulating them into making me beautiful. I was the mirror. Double sided and ready to turn on those who let their guard down for just a second. Ready to stab them in the back and leave them to bleed.

I didn't even realize.

Not until, my makeup ran in streaks down my face. Not until my nails became chipped and dull. Not until my eyes turned bloodshot. Or my hair lost it's shine. My clothes became baggy and my teeth, yellow. I didn't even realize.

But mirrors are double sided, and if the lighting is right then you'll see what you want, and others will too. Nobody noticed how unglamorous it all was or how perfectly flawed I seemed to be. I didn't let them. Persuasion is my greatest weapon. Perfectly able to hypnotize and command those at my fingertips. Now I realize I was never beautiful. The ability to feel beautiful was a costume, a security blanket. Covering me in a false warmth. A replacement for the love I was too busy destroying. Beauty was my greatest flaw. But I was never beautiful. I never will be, because beauty doesn't exist.

It was always an illusion.

~o~

I feel like there were a hundred different ways I could have written this better, but no words come to mind of how I could write them. I'm partly satisfied with this, I hope some of you liked it. Even if it was to short for my taste.

By the way, I'm running out of good writing music. Does anybody have some good suggestions?