Beauty – Louanda Boyce

One woman’s memory of being called Beauty as a little brown girl becomes a lifelong journey towards self-acceptance, confidence, and freedom from the voices that told her she wasn’t enough.

Louanda Boyce

Barbados

With a sweet song in her voice,

she called me ‘Beauty’,

I blushed but never answered,

She had no idea how she rattled

the cage that held

The hateful whispers in my head,

Voices that were all my own.

She called me Beauty so lovingly…

so assuredly…

and blessed this little brown girls’ heart.

How she opened my curious mind to the doors of what I held inside me…

My true beauty.

Am I beautiful? Me?

She called me Beauty and made me take long looks at my chocolate skin,

my chubby cheeks…

dimples screaming with unpretentious sweetness,

but could it be? truly?

Am I beautiful? Me?

even as I grew from my 7 year old body into pre-teen puberty,

I remembered her calling me Beauty,

in the midst of so much ugliness around me.

That one word helped me to see myself deeper than any eye could see,

I saw my trusting heart,

My strength,

My creative mind,

I heard my cute giggle,

truly heard it for the first time.

She called an ugly duckling, Beauty,

and set me free from the weighted vest,

which had been assigned to me,.

To this day, I hear her call me Beauty…

But if she called me now

I’d answer,

“Yes… I am…”

“I am Beauty…”

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Beauty – Louanda Boyce

Louanda Boyce

Barbados

Cocoa & Coconut