“I don’t know when the word “beautiful” began to sound like “painful” to me. Perhaps it was when the first person who called me the word treated it like it was part curse part currency. Thought it would make me open to him like a street market opens to an impatient crowd in the soft foggy morning. We teach girls how embodying this hollow word is the only thing worth being. We tell them through fairness creams, through wrinkle creams that they are disposable when they start aging. We inform them through television shows and advertisements there is nothing better than this skin deep validation. But we neglect to mention how even the most “beautiful” of us is cursed, as this is part of time’s cruel terms and conditions. Tell me how we can teach an entire world that the word “beautiful” is not a thing to become slave to. Tell me how we teach a planet where beauty has become currency that soft hearts and intelligent minds are things of far greater value.”

— Nikita Gill, On Beauty And Aging (via meanwhilepoetry)

(via goatdancing)