my truest form of self expression was when i posted looking ugly

i started writing online almost three years ago, and if you think i’m vulnerable online now, my first poetry tik toks would blow you away.

“when you are so beautiful, people don't really notice that you are so disturbed.. so sometimes.. when my hair gets really greasy, and my skin gets really bad... it's like my armor is being stripped away, and there i am, left vulnerable and exposed.. like everyone can finally tell, that i'm a beast in women's clothing.”

a note i wrote and posted earlier this month. 

here’s the rest of the melt down: 

I feel a fraud to beauty as I feel a fraud to art. Slipping between the cracks of writing I deem good and body image days I deem good. I am melting down, screaming, crying, spitting, drooling & writhing as I write this. Maybe it’s because my period is coming, I need to move out of my parents house & I am starting new college courses in the fall.

Maybe it’s because I see myself in my Snapchat front camera, the bumps deep under my skin, the acne scars, the weak jawline, greasy hair, puffed lips (in a bad way) & I feel so deeply, unnervingly fucking disgusting that I want to escape my skin. So fucking disgusting to the touch, the smell, the look, the feel, the sound, unloveable.. untouchable.. I feel like a beast in women’s clothing & I know it’s not true, & I preach to everyone around me that it’s not true.. but I cannot fight the way I feel, I do not have control over my emotions like that.

So I everything shower, shave every nook of my body, moisturize, blow my hair out, do my skincare, apply my makeup with the precision of a brain surgeon, & for a moment.. no quicker than the camera roll shutter.. I feel okay.. I feel like I am worthy. I feel no fear over being seen. Until the makeup sets into my pores a bit & the volume in my hair flattens a bit.. & I’m reminded.. that alas , I am so terribly human.

I want to say monster, but I would never call you that.. & I fear you’re relating to the words I’m saying. When you’re beautiful no one cares that ur disturbed, sometimes they're even curious by it.. so when my skin is bad & my hair is greasy it feels like my armor is being stripped away. Like such a massive part of not only my identity is mutilated but it’s like the shield is off.. and I think I’m afraid to be seen.

A lot of people think I’m vulnerable because of the topics I write about, but there was a time I was truly vulnerable. & that was only when I first started sharing my writing online. It was March 2022 & I had just found out my highschool sweetheart was cheating on me. I lost my entire fucking mind. I was in college at the time and began spending all my down time between classes reading philosophy books because they made my problems seem so minute. I began to really connect with The Myth of Sisyphus & felt so strongly about my new outlook on the world that I had to share it.

I had so many thoughts and words and pains and aches in my mind I simply would have exploded if I did not let it out. I could not talk to the wall anymore. I shared a video of me reading poetry I wrote for the first time, in my car, reading off my iPad and filming on my phone. I put a Bon Iver song over it & posted it. My hair was a mess, my skin was acne ridden, you could see the creases and discolouration in my armpits, the rasp in my voice, the frog in my throat. It blew the fuck up. I kept doing this for months and gained a following, (you! :) ) and it absolutely changed my life… but something happened.

I think maybe it happened when I decided I wanted to post these videos to Instagram too. Instagram is different than tiktok, my Instagram account is followed by everyone I’ve actually ever known in my real life, my tiktok was just created one day out of the blue. Once I decided I want to post on Instagram, I did my makeup, did my hair, put on a nice top, and reread, refilmed, and rewrote pieces for fucking HOURS. Then once I posted one looking beautiful, I never had the rawness to post one looking ugly ever again.

This not only affected my self esteem, but had a real effect on my writing. It diluted it, superficialized it. It built a toxic relationship between my art and my body. Before I started sharing my writing online, I was writing from true pain and I never thought about anyone ever seeing it. It was my purest form of art. My purest form of self expression. I will never again make art only for myself, I am constantly thinking about the criticism and algorithm and masses. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to create from such a vulnerable place again. It was beautiful. & I thought I was so ugly. 

So all this to say, beauty dilutes my creativity in a massive way. It is difficult to face the fear of being seen, but it is crucial. be raw. be gross. make art. be loud. get hate comments. post your yellow teeth. i love you. thx for reading x