too heavy to hold

being pretty is not what they tell you it will be.

no one tells you how slippery it is. how strange. how it follows you like a shadow you can’t claim. you catch it by accident in the window of a store, in the way someone looks at you too long. you see yourself suddenly, not as you feel, but as someone else might. and it startles you.

because there’s a difference. a distance, really. between the person in your head and the one in the mirror. the one who hesitates, who bites her nails down to the quick. the one who gets it wrong. and then the other one, the one they call pretty. it’s a word that doesn’t fit, but it sticks anyway. it shows up in the pause, in the smile, in the way people want you close.

there’s a kind of power in it. yes. things open. people soften. you don’t always have to explain yourself. but the power is borrowed. thin. and it doesn’t last. because it isn’t about you. it’s about what they see. what they want. it’s never been about who you are.

and who are you?

not the girl they see. not witty, not poised. not the version they imagine. you feel scattered. tired. you say things wrong. you replay conversations in your head like they matter. like anyone noticed. the weight of it is not in the beauty itself but in what’s expected of you because of it. you’re supposed to be easy. light. someone else’s idea of pleasant.

sometimes you wonder what would happen if all of it went away. if the face changed. if the word stopped following you. would they still want to know you? would they still look? or would they turn away, embarrassed, for having looked so long at something ordinary?

that’s the part no one tells you. that even with all the attention, you’re still alone. the prettiness doesn’t protect you from loneliness. it doesn’t keep you warm at night. it doesn’t make anyone ask the real questions. they stay on the surface. they talk about the surface. they don’t ask what matters.

it’s isolating.

you see it in their eyes: the confusion. the discomfort. as if they don’t know what to do with you. they don’t want the rest of it. the darker parts. the ache. they want the version that doesn’t need anything.

and still, you hold onto it. the prettiness. because it’s what you’ve been given. because you’re afraid of what’s underneath. afraid there’s nothing else they’ll want. afraid they were only looking because of that.

so you carry it. like a shield. like a trap. you carry it through rooms, through conversations, through moments when someone calls you pretty like it’s the only thing they could think to say. and maybe it’s meant as kindness. maybe it is.

but you wish it wasn’t. you wish there was another word. something that saw more. something that didn’t feel like being flattened.

but there isn’t. not yet. so you keep going. you keep carrying it.

because what choice do you have?