It is not my fault that I spend a longer time than I should in front of the mirror every day.

I am very aware of the precious seconds that I waste, that I could be using instead to do so many other things, so many other ”groundbreaking, life-changing things” 

I know that if I collected each minute that I have spent worrying, fidgeting, and wondering about my appearance, maybe just maybe I could be inventing the next ingenious machinery or whatever.

I know that if I counted all the money that I have “wasted” purchasing make-up to cover up all my assigned insecurities that, I could damn near be a millionaire. 

Oh imagine how inspirational I would be if I did not take all those selfies, if I did not pose provocatively on my social media. Imagine how much more respect I would receive. 

I am shallow. I am superficial. I lack depth. And it is entirely your fault. Not mine. 

I would not stand in front of the mirror if you hadn’t handed me the mirror in the first place.

I would not use it as a tool to pick myself apart, If you hadn’t told me that that was what it was for. 

I do not care if you judge me. I am not doing this for you. 

Not anymore. 

There is voice, there has always been a voice. This voice would remind me that I could be better, that I could look better. The voice never talked about anything else. It followed me, reminding me, every day. This voice and his message would be spoken through my peers and the world around me. “You could be skinnier, you could fix this and change that.” It haunted me.

I would see it in the movies I watched, in the music I listened to, In the people I met. In the way I was treated, in the way that I was received and, in the way that I would feel, once I was alone. 

I could be better, or rather, I am not enough. 

So guess what? I did what I needed to do to be accepted, to be humanized. I became shallow, superficial surface-Level.

I did all this because you told me to. Because I did not have any other option. 

Because if I didn’t then I would be subjected to something far worse than being shallow and lacking depth. I would be discarded. I would be unacknowledged. I would be treated like I wasn’t flesh and bones, like I was not something that was living, something that can be injured, something that can at a given point stop breathing. 

So you tell me, would you rather be shallow or nothing? are these options? 

Call me shallow. So what? I was born to be this way.

i am the pool you never stepped in because you knew it was too deep and you couldn’t swim.