My Beauty External Poem by Ryan Lee Morris

I stand in front of the mirror.
I turn on the light, so my reflection I can see.
But things are not as they appear.
I do not like what I see.
I just want to be beautiful.
The lights are dimmed, to minimize the outward appearance.
I try to appease an outside world,
I want them to see the beautiful me.
Why is it they speak of a beauty that I do not find so apparent?
Why is it I see the same beauty in another that stares in disappointment at their reflection?
Their lights too are dimmed.
But it is not the outward light that shows beauty.
It is my inward light.
If my inward light is dimmed.
Then it is my inner beauty that lurks in the darkness of my own mind.
A battle that has raged since before the dawn of time.
I shut off the light,
I cannot shut off the voices in my mind.
Many voices screaming, drowning out the one that whispers.
They tell me I am not good enough.
If I clear my mind, and silence the voices,
I hear the one whisper into my heart.
"You are beautiful".
For now, it is my inward light that shines.
It reflects my beauty for the world to see.
But it is only when that light shines within me.
That my beauty of the external can be seen.