beauty

A definition is slowly being rebuilt in my dull little mind.

It used to be all skinny legs and shiny hair, bulge-free backs and smooth thighs.
It was always a comparison that I couldn't stand too close to.

Though it took some time, I finally stopped looking at their bodies and looked closer to what it was the women around me were saying and doing and though my vision is still somewhat sandy - the light of truth is more visible around the edges now.

Beneath a smile plastered face that should read frustration and instead exudes patience, where smeared mascara is left by a hand that doesn't have the luxury to linger on selfish pain, when hands are raised to praise when they could wrench in sorrow, I saw beauty.

When crowns of glory were shorn for sacrifice, when dry and cracked lips chose to speak words of blessing, where women with right to blame and sin let their tightly grasped fingers fall open and let hurt slip down.

I see it clearly now - woven into the women around me.
Beauty shifted.