I like to indulge in everybody else’s perception of beauty. I sit, I scroll, I attach myself to a stranger through a screen and wait to be hurt. I sit on my couch all day doing nothing but daydreaming about a life that I can’t live. I scroll and hope for a pretty girl to pop up and make me feel inferior. I never do feel inferior, but I hope to. I guess we could say I feel comfort in my sadness. It’s the closest thing I have to being a typical teenage girl.

Failed eating disorders, crying myself to sleep and admiring how I look the morning after, new skin care routine every week, painting nails, doing hair, caring way too much about how I look, watching stupid fucking shows knowing I want to watch stupid doctrine affiliated YouTube videos. Truthfully, the only thing I don’t have to act like I care about is my body image. I genuinely care about how I look. I try not to act like I care how I look but that’s only because I have to live up to the ‘carefree, cool,’ dream girl version of myself I’ve created in my head.

Everytime I think about how Trey would comfort me, I’m more beautiful. I’m the beautiful, skinny, insecure girl with daddy issues that just needs love and it’s small enough to hug. I’m not small enough to hug, that’s why Trey is tall in my head and in practice a giant but I honestly think I’m just lonely.

I can never feel feminine enough. I can never feel small enough. Not because I’m black, not because I’m taller than other girls my age, not because I’m boyish. There is just so much love in the world but I’m too big to fit. I want to fit into those spaces because I feel like someone else took my place in the world. Everytime I think someone likes me they love someone else. I guess I set myself up for that mostly. Usually I can tell when someone is messing with me for nudes. But sometimes they just say the right things and I attach myself.

I often get angry because there is nothing I could do to make the people- I want to like me- like me. I imagine Trey to receive as much as I give for a change. Sometimes I do come to the realization that none of it is real and it’s simply just me telling myself what I want to hear. It’s me feeling sorry for myself. I wonder if I don’t receive any of it in real life because I don’t deserve it. Isn’t everyone deserving of love though? I’m 16. I feel like I should be in a spot where I’m occupied with everything else.

I figured that every time I think about who I want to be, my mind paints her older, wiser, and more resolute. I tend to get angry that I’m not her now. But she’s patient. I act confident to try and meet her but the truth is I have no experience and I’m not fully a woman. I wear my masquerade of confidence to conjure her, but beneath it I am unseasoned, and unripe. I’m still an insecure little girl no matter how big or aggressive I feel. I want to be loved too soon. I want to rush the experience.

I write. I imagine myself creating mini portals and I imagine being able to fall down a hole and appear to the fictional places I create for myself. The happier me, the sadder me, the prettier me, past me, present me. Despite my vivid imagination, I remain unsatisfied. The portals are just illusions, and I’m left longing for fulfillment. There's always Trey regardless. I know he’s real somehow. Maybe he’s a ghost. Maybe he’s a part of me. Maybe he’s someone from another universe that needs what only I could give him, just like he’s the only thing that makes me feel human. I can never see him. He’s more of a feeling that I couldn’t live without. He’s my heartbeat. He’s what I look for in every relationship, in every aspect of my day, when I’m writing my portals, when I’m imagining the wildest things. I suppose he’s somewhat of an enigma. He’s my pencil.

Now I’m 18. Some days I can feel 16 creeping inside of me if I look in the mirror too long. Trey is not yet long gone, but he’s faded into Alessandro, who has lifted the weight of loneliness. Some days I feel like I’m still misunderstood, but I've accepted the fact that I will never be understood- I’m not meant to be. I find myself laughing at things I would’ve been embarrassed to laugh at 2 years ago, even months ago. I’ve met beautiful people. Those beautiful people have made me realize that I have a bit of beauty in myself as well. Trey is no longer my pencil. My love is finally my pencil. Of course I’m not fully mature. I’m still a bit unripe. I don’t think I’m even half way there. I’ve come to realize that beauty isn’t even close to what makes me- or anyone- special. The mask of confidence is no longer a mask, but a badge of honor. There is so much love and the world and all I can do is add to it and feel it through others, sometimes I even feel it myself, whether it’s through yelling, or a hug, or someone simply saying “hey, My love.” I’m able to put my brain away into things aside from my mirror. I could be anything, pretty is the least important. The portals are no longer an illusion, they’re real if I make them. My perception of beauty is the most important to be, mine is the most attainable. I look at 16, how 20 looks at me, how 22 looks at 20, how 25 looks at 22. There is nothing to rush, there is nothing worth rushing anymore. Life is only what you make it, maybe even more. Love isn’t conditional as I’ve been subconsciously taught. Some people are born with so much love in their hearts.