The ‘Beautiful’ Gremlin:
WHEN YOU EMBODY YOUR LIGHT
When you embody your light, there is no denying of your beauty. Beauty, I’ve learnt, is the direct reflection of one’s capacity to love. Beauty is different to artificial glamour. Artifical glamour is hot, it is ‘pretty’, and it is the aesthetic we are told to aspire to. Artifical glamour changes with fashion, time, and it can be cloned.
Artifical glamour can be acquired, whereas authentic beauty must be lived and expressed.
Have you ever seen someone who shouldn’t be ‘beautiful’ but they just are? Beautiful is in the way pink hair blows in the wind across the wrinkles of a mature lady on a pedal bike. Authentic beauty is in the way saggy skin folds over the lips of a trumpet player in a dingy room. To me, beauty = authentic love. This kind of spirit can’t be bought; it doesn’t age, and it can be found even in the worst of situations.
When the essence of authentic beauty is copied, it leads to confident individuals. Whereas when the essence of artificial glamour is copied, it leads to more look-a-likes and creates a not-so-accidental side effect of insecurity.
And so, with this little brain wave, I wrote this poem.
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE?
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE AREN’T MADE BY MISTAKE
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE ARE CARVED OUT THROUGH LIFES GRACE
AND YOUR BEAUTY IS WRITTEN UPON YOUR FACE
WHEN YOU DISAGREE YET UNDERSTAND LIFE’S PACE
YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL WHEN YOU WEAR YOUR STYLE UNAPOLOGETICALLY
AND DANCE THE WAY YOU NEED, WHOLEHEARTEDLY
YOU'RE RADIANT WHEN YOU SHOUT INSTINCTIVELY
WHEN YOU GET WILD AND ANGRY AND LAUGH FROM YOUR BELLY
SURE, ARTIFICIAL GLAMOUR LOOKS GOOD ON YOU
YOU KNOW HOW TO CODE-SWITCH AND LOOK FINE AS HELL, TOO
BUT YOU CAN'T AMAZON PRIME
THE TWINKLE IN YOUR EYES
WHEN YOU GET ALL EXCITED
ABOUT KENDRICK AND THE SKIES
SO DON'T GET IT TWISTED SIS
YOUR BEAUTY IS ANCHORED TO YOUR SOUL
AND THERE IS NOTHING ACCIDENTAL
ABOUT YOU
BEING CALLED
BEAUTIFUL
-Karimah
P.S. You think I’d leave you without giving you some colour? I’d never. Here…. nice and raw straight from the sketch book
Colour.
K Love you bye till next week.
P.S Yes. Yes, YOU are boo-ti-fullll.
