Beauty Page(ends)
By: Khushi Patel
Tags: Poetry, Beauty, Fiction, Poem, Acceptance

Credits — Unsplash

The very first thing I learned as a kid,

after walking, was to walk like a model.

Pretty kid, they said,

modeling will be of much aid.

why let such beauty go to waste,

make haste,

she will grow.

She will grow, and her beauty will deteriorate,

and she will gain weight,

As such is her fate.

And so,

Pageant, after pageant,

Went my parents, looking for an agent.

Someone who will be the ticket,

The ticket to the supermodel they always wanted.

All I could do was smile,

and walk, and strut, and

Smile. Smile. Smile,

Smile through the pain;

of being burnt by curling irons,

From my heels breaking to my ankles twisting.

Is it just me, or is the damage really obvious here?

My mother telling me that I am not good enough,

That I won’t have a shot at winning the pageant,

If I am not tan enough,

Or skinny enough,

Or peppy enough,

Or pretty enough,

Because all we are taught is that girls can never be good enough.

I don’t care what the message in Miss Congeniality was,

Beauty pageant shows are pretty screwed up.

Having full-grown women dance around in bikinis is already degrading enough

But watching five-year-olds do the same seems borderline barbaric.

I was that five-year-old who was forced to conform to the standards of beauty.

I was that tiny girl who was coached, who was forced,

To wear revealing outfits,

Put ten pounds of makeup,

Put fake tans,

Put fake teeth,

Have big bouncy hair.

Cut the whole “beauty pageants are good for building self-esteem” crap right now,

Cause I’m not buying it

Beauty pageants dehumanize women

to see which girl looks best in a swimsuit

And don’t even try to justify it

Cause I’m not naïve,

Well, if girls are encouraged to be themselves during these competitions,

If they genuinely have the license to be themselves

Then my mom wouldn’t be standing in the corner every time

Whispering,

“smile wider, darling! Remember the smile we practiced?”

How much I detest that smile

Believe me or not

My pageant mom is a hundred times scarier,

than those perverts who tried to peek under my short dresses

Pageants supposedly teach little girls like me,

That looks and dresses and smiles, competitions and cash prizes are all one needs in life

We should be picture perfect, my mother says

From the way we walk to the way we talk, to the way we flirtatiously smile at others

We will always be judged

If you let your guard down, even a little, you can’t win in life.

She taught me that there is nothing more in me as a person,

That, all that I am, is a pair of long legs, big breasts, a tiny waist,

Winking eyes and a wide accepting smile.

That if any of those things were lacking in me, I would be a failure in life.

She was standing in front of the mirror one day, my mother

Patting her muffin top and whining about the bags under her eyes and the loss of her figure

“Do you think this dress makes me look fat?” she asked me, her five-year-old daughter

I fixed her with a long stare…

“Why do you constantly say stuff like that about yourself?” I demanded to know

“Beauty is everything, my dear.

This is the one thing in this world that is more than clear.”

Growing up in this world, I realized

There is no place for the

oversized,

Beauty doesn’t even exist,

Unless you can cross off

everything on the checklist:

Big butt, big boobs,

skinny waist, all the fat

evenly placed

flawless skin, tiny chin,

plump lips, bony hips,

Healthy thighs, big eyes

36. 24. 36,

should be my size.

And so, as I grew,

I was told what to do,

I had to follow a point,

Always afraid to disappoint.

Beauty Pageants open doors to fame

Venturing like living dolls who are chained

They parade in miniature ballgowns, wear fake eyelashes

Do multiple surgeries and bust their asses

They are drowned in hope for wealth

Neglecting their own health.

Pageants are marketing ploys

Used by agencies as advertising toys

To sell their products, for benefits and profits

They used me until the end, shutting my dream into a closet.

Modeling is no fun

It is the most degrading job, hon

From detox diets to lose weight

To undergoing multiple surgeries to look great.

My continence has been continuously verbalized.

But for what?!

For males to be mesmerized by my thighs

Or possibly what lies in between them

You see, I know the way I will be portrayed

But It doesn’t matter, right?

Because my mother sure is getting paid.

My purpose for all this is to open your eyes

To realize

That these marketing guys

Are not on our side, were never on our side

You see, women are queens

But we are also human beings.