when told you're not pretty

Pretty is a six-letter word that can’t encompass your entire being in its arms. You were born to a mother who wore pain like trees wear their rings, as marks of fierce bravery and battle cries. You almost split her insides open coming out, wailing so hard the plaster cracked, but she grinned and bore it like a champion, even though the walls of her womb felt like one giant cigarette burn that no one cared enough to put out.

You are Icarus incarnate, with a body stitched from wings, flying toward the sun every day no matter how low the storm clouds hover. Pretty is not a synonym for learning how to put together a body that fights itself every day with pocket knives, like assembling letters to form words that flame in the mouth. That’s called survival. Pretty is an ugly word. It leaves behind a bitter residue that apologies cannot erase. Pretty is just an excuse for playing darts with a woman’s confidence.

When told you are not pretty, always remember how your body expanded to fit its widening cage, its blooming hips, how the growing pains were less like pain and more like cracking fault lines. How your body turned itself inside out and spilled over and over again. Getting emptied is not pretty. It is dark and wounding and it requires strength enough to move mountains.

On your worst days do not look in the mirror and call yourself pretty. Call yourself trying, call yourself surviving, call yourself learning how to get through a day, a week, a month or year. Call yourself still learning. Pretty is just six letters for lipstick, false eyelashes, combs for hair that never gets tangled, not for women who earn a victory every day just managing to exist.

When told you are not pretty, do not suck in your stomach. Pretty is a discriminatory word, but having a body that knows what it wants and gets what it wants is not a hate crime. It’s a healing hymn.

Don’t forget how trees shake their last leaves in winter like they’re shedding skin from the old year. Shed pretty. Shed it now. Teach yourself to replace it with heart-wrenching, brilliant, clever, artistic, unique, understanding, fighting. Always living.

When told you are not pretty, don’t fall in love with the ground. Get back up. This is not an apocalypse; this is not the end of the world. A six-letter word doesn’t have the power to burn down every building in site or freeze the entire world in epic proportions. Your body is not wreckage or refuse left over from a world on fire. Your body is just fine.

Look in the mirror. Tell yourself, Pretty is not me. Pretty is an ugly concept. I am more.

Say it. Say it.

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I adore this woman and her writing // credits: writingsforwinter

Why there is nothing wrong with Wrecking Ball and if there is, it's just you

Credits: @londonfeminist

Despite the recent hooha regarding Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus, I've just watched it last night and needless to say I am enraged. Not for the reason that you think, mind you, I am mad because she is under fire for doing what she did in the music video. It's her mv so what is wrong with it being the way how she wants it to be?

"But she's naked!"

"And she behaves suggestively while licking a hammer!!"

"This is way too distasteful for our society!!!"

Hello, double standard much?

Need I really remind you people that there are way more indecent mv out there by male singers? Yes? Male singers who sings while half-naked female dancers grinds themselves against the singers? Still can't think of any? Well, how about Robin Thicke's Blurred Line mv where the scantily clad female dancers hump animals?

Up until this point I have steadfastly refused to listen or watch BL's mv because it's nothing but a rape song. However, for the sake of this post I begrudgingly allow myself to suffer through the mv and if that isn't downright disgusting I don't know what is. It is, hands down, the most wasteful four minutes thirty two seconds of my life.

So, why is Miley under flak for WB when the society practically reveres BL? Oh right, silly me. How could I have forgotten that we live in a patriarchy society where double standards rule.

That it's alright for male singer to have a mv for a rape song that features smug males with scantily clad and at times naked female dancers while it's absolutely wrong for a female singer who has a mv where she too is half naked and at times naked as like aforementioned dancers.

I don't think I will ever understand why it's alright for girls to be naked in a guy's mv but not in her own.

Nor do I think I will ever agree that it's ok for girls to grind themselves to a guy singer while it's definitely wrong for a girl singer to grind herself against another singer. Yes, I'm talking about Miley's VMA performance but that will come later on.

Back to WB and BL, as you have prolly grasp on to my train of thoughts so far, I don't think there is anything wrong with WB's mv while there's a legion of reasons why BL is condemnable.

1) WB has way better lyrics than blurred lines. I mean aside from how even nursery rhymes would have been a better song than a song about rape, WB is one of Miley's better songs thus far and you can actually see and feel emotions being poured through the songs. And even if upon hearing BL, you don't believe that Robin is actually singing about rape, please go here and enlighten yourself for the sake of this world's humanity.

2) WB's mv is more artistically constructed than BL. Yes,yes,yes Miley is naked but is there really anything wrong with it besides your own double standard? From the context of the song, I actually applaud her for wearing what she did, or not wearing in this case, because it can be a symbolisation of how vulnerable and naked she feels/the subject of the song makes her feel. And if I'm not mistaken, she said so too herself in an interview.

In light of her recent VMA performance I can try (am still trying) to infer how people might think that her being naked is another sign of her turning wild/*inserts whatever else that people are saying about it*.Since I'm neither fan nor friends of Miley I cannot attest that it's not but even so being naked makes much more artistic sense in WB than in BL. Sorry but three males singing about how there is possibly blurred lines in rape while half-naked female dancers strut around irks me to no end.

Sorry to tell you this Robby boy but if there's a definitive black and white in this world, it's obviously in rape.

No means NO.

Oh and robby boy, self-compliment is not compliment so having " Robin Thicke has huge D" written on the wall in your mv doesn't show any class but instead, am I sensing a hint of insecurity in you?

3) Miley grew up. Get this into your head and stop whining will ya? So what if she's no longer the innocent looking girl next door that you grew up watching in Hannah Montana? I don't believe that she has gone wild, she's not involved in drugs and alcohol, she just grew up and decided that being princess-like is not her cup of tea so what's wrong with her tough-ing up her image. I find her new rugged look more refreshing than the long blonde locks and girly outfits that many other Hollywood stars adopt. She is actually getting out of the cookie-cutter-syndrome that plagues many a female so sorry if I actually prefer individual over clones.

And now about her VMA's performance: I can honestly say that it's not to my taste because I find those huge bears creepy but again, how is her overall actions different from those male singers who have female dancers rubbing all over them? Those aren't females is it?

Double standard is again the answer here, much to my chagrin.

Robin was also as much guilty as she is, if she is guilty at all, for the performance because he was an active participant too. Why isn't he being lambasted for the performance then? Why wasn't he chastised for not advising Miley against doing such thing?

Especially when he's older than she is (hence with much more experience) and better (because y'know in the world that we live in, the fact that he's a male alone makes him better and more superior than her) so why didn't he tell Miley to drop the act when he knew in advanced that she was going to do such thing. He himself admitted that they practiced in advance so if he gave the green light for miley to go ahead then why is she under fire for her 'slutty' behaviours (and i use this term loosely here) when robin is as equally wrong?

I hate how, and I quote a friend of mine here, it's always ok for the guy to stand there and be the sex pole but it's not ok if a girl wants to rub against it because all girls must be sexless and pure creatures and if we are not, we are a disgrace to the female race.

So no, I don't think there is anything wrong with Wrecking Ball. Criticise the song on its own merits if you don't like it because everyone has their own likes and dislikes but please stop with all the "The song is great but it will be better if she's not naked.", "Ewww wrecking ball is so distasteful because of the mv.", "It's too much."

If you want to know what too much is, go listen and watch Blurred line and give Robin his due flak.