They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
But if beauty is a woman,
Then maybe no one ever told her that if that’s true,
I’ve heard beautiful people say
“I hate it when people stare at me.”
And I, being ugly, have muttered
“Yeah, me too.”
And you will not be this.
I’ve taken all my last chances,
divided by my near misses,
and found that this is my second time around.
And I’ve got my ears pressed so close to the ground
I can hear the sound of my mother telling me:
“You will not be this!”

From kindergarten to grade eight
I was teased and beaten so bad;
I came home crying every day.
Until my mother’s eyes developed a voice
and I saw them say
“You’ve got a choice.
You can choose to run from these fights
until your life gets narrowed down to either hit or miss,
or you can do whatever you have to do
in order to make them love you because
you will not be this.”
So from a father with Scoliosis
to a mother with multiple sclerosis
I ended up with a diagnosis somewhere in the middle
with a diagnosis handed down to me by my class so called “mates”.
Sentenced my to a life alone with their first impressions.
All of those court room sessions going on in the back of mind
Trying to find some way to prove me guilty.
And I was,
Ugly.

But I made them love me.
See, on my first time around I played Icarus.
Got so close to the Sun that I fell.
Sat with lovers who wound up in hell,
But this is my second time around.
And the next time I climb to the top of that summit,
I'm gonna get so close to the Sun I can roast marshmallows from it.
Because I don't care how you've suffered.
You ever been reeled in, reamed out, picked on, put down, based on what you look like?
I won't lie to you,
I won’t say everything's gonna to be okay,
I won't pretend.
But I will put my arm around you and say,
“Don't worry friend”
I'm calling you friend
Because as for what is beautiful and what is not,
I am the backdrop.
I am the stop sign on the line you crossed
When you asked:
“Why do you want our respect so bad?!”
Because you told me I can't have it!
And I’ll be goddamned if I don't get it.
Every expectation you placed on me,
I've met it.
And I refuse to edit my life.
So as what is beautiful and what is not,
I've got your answer.
I am your basis for all comparison.
I am the garrison that holds up the terrible weight of beauty.
But I'm not a soldier,
So does not my duty to apologize for how I look.
It took me two times around,
but I found that I am one of a kind.
And those people out there get a buy novel selection as good,
And they're not too broke to change their mind.
And I am sure if they checked,
They might find enough loose beauty jingling around their pockets,
To go buy some self-respect.
And I don't just preach this,
I teach this.
I don’t just give this,
I live this!

Because stubbornness is like the color of my eyes.
And I've heard enough lies to know the truth
That in my youth,
Stubbornness is something my mother gave me!
So, I've made it my friend,
I started to blend knowledge with wisdom.
My mother taught me to take the Bruce Lee approach to learning:
Learning as self defense.
And I've learned a thing or two about a thing or two.
And yeah, it's true, maybe I don't take off my shirt,
When I'm sleeping beside you.
But when I was six years old, they peeled me off the street.
And the skin on my back stuck to the hospital stretcher sheet,
Like thinly sliced deli meat.
An accident turned me into a work of art.
With a doctor like a museum curator,
Reading my chart to a bunch of interns who whisper,
They've seen third-degree burns better than the ones on my back.
But life's a gamble.
So, I learned to stack the odds of my favor.
I learned to savor the hand I was dealt.
And yeah, sometimes I felt like life is really just more trouble than it's worth.
Even my birth was a tragedy that ensured my mother would never have another baby.
And maybe if you didn't tell that doctor to cut into your womb,
It would’ve become my tomb.
That was my first time around.
And since then, I found my life is neither hit nor miss.
And I still cries sometimes,
But don't worry,
I will not be this.