I have never thought of myself

as beautiful.

Beautiful belonged

to people who knew

what they were doing

the moment they entered a room.

People who understood

that lips

would be noticed.

That quick glances between equals

could be mistaken

for desire.

That softness, offered lightly,

rarely stays light

in someone else’s hands.

I only knew the heat of it.

A pretty face.

Then the lips.

Eyes to get lost in.

Details handed down

through generations —

cheek, mouth, glance —

an old family spell.

A presentation, yes,

but not an accomplishment.

So I moved carelessly.

Without discernment.

Without grace.

It was never clear

how a quick line

could stain my skin.

How teasing —

that small, intimate cruelty —

could push the line.

How a symbol nestled in text,

a tilt in tone,

a quick retort,

could feed the flames

in someone else’s hearth.

I thought I was being bright.

A little wicked.

Playful.

Alive in my own skin.

I did not understand

that I was striking matches

in rooms I had no intention

of staying to warm.

That’s the part

no one tells you

when you do not think of yourself

as beautiful.

You do not learn the disciplines

beautiful people acquire early.

How to feel the shift

when attention thickens.

How to hear want

before it speaks plainly.

How to recognise

the moment ease

is mistaken

for invitation,

no matter how badly

the attention lands.

There is no substitute

for laughter,

for rhythm,

for that live-wire pleasure

of being clever with someone

already half deciding

what your mouth would feel like.

And suddenly

there it is:

the humiliating knowledge

that what felt natural to you

felt promising to them.

That your wit

was not just wit.

That your warmth

was not just warmth.

That your body

had entered the conversation

long before you did.

Not because I lied.

Not because I offered

what I would not give.

But because I did not understand

that attraction could travel through laughter.

That hope could grow

in the space

between what I meant

and what I wanted.

There is something devastating

in learning this late.

That I was never innocent

in the way I imagined.

Not guilty —

but not untouched either.

That I have been walking around

with a face that softens,

a mouth that suggests,

a gaze that lingers

half a second too long

to mean nothing,

and calling it personality.

Calling it humour.

Calling it ease.

Calling it self.

When all along

some part of the world

was reading hunger

into every bright little spark

I threw off

without thinking.

And worst of all,

they were not always wrong.