Warning: Some adult language ahead.

I look at myself in the mirror and wince.

I wince the kind of wince that shakes the heart-shattering scars and floating petals of pain loose from the leafy, palm tree creases of my sensitive soul.

I keep it together; I hold it all in.

I flutter my flirty, freshly mascaraed lashes, but tears simmer from behind the scenes, threatening to splash onto my lacy black dress.

I try to smile—but not too much—because each curl of my lips cautions against smearing my perfectly painted dark plum pout.

I dab creamy concealer compulsively underneath each eye, feeling relieved as it renders my dark circles invisible, hoping so hard it will cover the scars on my heart, too.

But it doesn’t.

What a perfectly brilliant mask.

But—it’s not me.

Perfection propels inward, cracks open and reveals the imperfect shards of its own fragmented and flawed nature.

I am, I want, I need, I feel.

I am a woman and I want to—need to—feel fucking alive.

I don’t want to be perfect.

I want to shake my hair loose from the shackles of too-hardened hairspray and let each golden strand breathe, so I can breathe too, exhaling fiercely like a lioness.

I want to wipe the clumpy mascara off my heavy eyelashes and cry like a tropical storm, rage like a no-joke hurricane, welcoming those salty waves to crash upon the raw shores of my cheeks.

I want to rip off the tight, scratchy dress that holds all my pieces oh-so-perfectly in place and just break the fuck open, fall the fuck apart.

I want to dip my head under a waterfall and rinse away my concealer and smear my shimmering apricot blush as I stick my tongue out and laugh loudly, with unbounded enthusiasm.

I want to screw shaving my legs and come to cherish the cactus-like spikes that inevitably poke out from underneath my well-worn yoga pants.

I want to stop looking in the all-omnipotent mirror and look in the murky depths of my soul instead.

I want to come undone, because being done-up costs more than I ever knew.

I don’t want to be shiny and flawless.

I don’t want to be a perfect woman.

I want to be me.

I want to wear my ugly scars and oozing imperfections and festering defects right on my tattered sweater sleeves and fucking own them.

I want to tremble in my rawness, shake in the blooming shoes of my identity.

I want to be me.

I don’t want to be a perfect woman.

Because she does not breathe or laugh or cry or dance or shout or love.

Because she does not exist.

I do.

I want to be me.

Relephant:

For the Free-Spirited Females with Fiercely Sensitive Hearts.

Author: Sarah Harvey

Editor:  Travis May

Photos:  Javier Avellan Veloz on Flickr