Beautiful

It's been seven months since a stranger called me beautiful
No, beautiful, you're on the wrong side; the subway is downstairs
Spoken in lisped Spanish by a tall security guard
The word guapa falling casually from his lips
Less a compliment, more a statement
You're objective and aesthetic

But they have foreign standards of beauty
And I have vaguely Arabic features
And symmetrical facial structures
That gurgling babies grasp at
It's cultural, they say
And I was born wrong
In the wrong time, the wrong place, with the wrong soul

When I was younger my father and I used to play a word game
Employing the double meaning of the word 'bien' in Spanish
Good and very
How are you, little one?
Good
Very what?
Very beautiful
And his eyes would crinkle as he agreed
Rubbing my cheeks with his calloused hands and kissing my forehead with his chapped lips

I did it again at my grandfather's 79 birthday
Only my father wasn't there
Just drunk relatives, wrapping their arms and cold beer around me
Saying I'd grown into my face
That I looked different--in  a good way-- honey
And laughing at my jokes
They called me beautiful, too
In Spanish, in English, in adjectives that grasp at the truth
Or subjective reality

It's not enough, you know
To be complimented by relatives
And Spanish men
And stare at my face as I smear liner on my top and bottom eyelashes
As I whisper your name over and over and over again

Because I press up my breast sometimes--generous, I've been told
And suck in my tummy and purse my lips and widen my eyes
And, and, and attempt improvements at lonely temples
Because I wonder if you'll find me beautiful one day
It's a convention
It's a social contract
But I want to conform

And the roads are covered in snow
And I remember that for no particularly reason, you remind me of the snow
Every time I see it
Every time it presses against my undefined cheekbones
And whispers over my shivering limbs

And love, this is the kind of town
Where it's impossible to forget the lovers that never were
And love, this is the kind of town
To pretend that I feel beautiful in

(I found this on my laptop. I wrote it in December, during Finals Weeks. I've been called beautiful since then. By a man on the Greyhound. Two men, actually. If 'pretty' counts. It's still not enough.)