Dots: My First Poem Poem by MMM MMM

Dots
i smear
dots and dots and dots
of concealer across a face
i can't stand looking at—
a map of flaws,
a surface so ruined it feels like something
I should tear off with my bare hands.
i'm so ugly that
i feel like a mistake the universe
has been trying to erase.
i'm so ugly that
every mirror in the house
has learned to look away
before i do.
i press more dots—
tiny beige bandages
over a war i keep losing.
nothing matches,
nothing blends,
nothing hides the truth festering underneath.
i'm so ugly that
my reflection feels like a punishment,
like something i was given
for sins i don't remember committing.
i smear over the redness,
over the marks that never heal,
over the shadows carved under my eyes
like someone carved "unworthy" into my skin.
i'm so ugly that
my body feels misassembled,
like someone put the wrong parts together
just to see how much it would hurt.
my hands shake
as i add more dots and dots and dots,
painting lies in circular motions,
trying to blur the parts of me
that scream the loudest.
i'm so ugly that
clothes don't just fit me wrong—
they expose me,
mock me,
cling to the softness i wish i could carve off.
i'm so ugly that
i stare at girls who look fragile like poems,
and i wonder why my body grew into a paragraph
when i begged to be a single, delicate line.
i'm so ugly that
every reflection feels like a reminder
that no matter how much i shrink myself,
i'll never be small enough
to be wanted—
only small enough
to disappear.
i'm so ugly that
even my bones feel wrong,
growing in awkward directions,
carrying me like a mistake.
so i keep painting,
layering, covering, erasing:
my cheeks, my jaw, my nose,
the body that betrays me
every time i breathe.
i'm so ugly that
no amount of blending
can soften the violence
of being seen.
And still I add the dots—
after the nights spent staring at my reflection
until my eyes burn,
after the hours wondering
how a face can feel like a curse
you carry without ever remembering who cast it.
I add the dots
because I'm tired of being the monster
in every photograph,
the ghost slipping between silhouettes
of girls who glow effortlessly.
I'm tired of wishing myself smaller,
thinner, softer, prettier—
wishing myself into shapes
my bones were never taught to make.
After all the effort—
the scraping, the hiding, the desperate reshaping—
I know I'll never look the way I wish I did.
Not in this body,
not in this face that feels like a punishment.
And sometimes, in the quiet,
I wonder how everyone else walks around
so comfortably inside their skin,
while mine feels like a story written wrong—
a draft the world forgot to finish,
a version of beauty that never learned how to exist.
The dots, they just help me act human for a few hours,
help me walk into the world without shattering,
help me pretend I'm not drowning in my own reflection.
The dots are my mask,
my quiet little lie that says:
"I'm fine, see? I tried."
When really… I'm only surviving the mirror,
one dot at a time.
And maybe the saddest part is that the dots work
just enough to make me forget
that I was never meant to be seen.
The dots help me survive the mirror—
but nothing helps me survive myself.
Because when they wash away,
I remember:
the real horror is the face that stays.

And when the last dot fades,
I wish I could fade with it—
but instead, I have to start it all again:
sleep, wake up, add dot after dot,
wash my face, pretend, begin again.

And every day I dream of being pretty,
of being someone who doesn't need the dots
to feel worth anything at all.
But deep down I know it won't happen—
not for me,
not in this world,
or this galaxy,
or this universe.

And maybe that's the saddest part—
knowing that no matter how much I try,
I'll never be someone who feels enough
without the dots holding me together.


And when tomorrow comes,
I won't really wake—
I'll just reappear, quietly,
in the same skin I'm tired of wearing,
stepping back into a life
that keeps moving even when I wish I didn't exist inside it.