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Is it too much to want to be pretty? To want to have people look at me in awe and wonder, instead of lingering gazes that speak of pity and uncertainty? Momma, sometimes I stay up late at night and look up at the stars. They're so tiny, so insignificant. So much like me. But they shine, Momma. And even one, alone, in a sky full of blackness and shadow, can draw an eye from thousands of miles away. So much power and brilliance in something so small, so fragile. I want to be a star, Momma. I want to shine, and I want people to look at me and breathe out slow and reverent. I know I'm small, Momma, and I know I can't change that. But if I have to be small...I want to be small and brilliant.
But I can't even achieve this.
I've failed you, Momma. I've failed you and Fae and myself, and it hurts more than the sting of my hooves can ever hope to achieve. And maybe if I scream, if I rip and tear away at my vocals and feel the blood wash down the back of my throat, I can wash away the shame with the only constant in my life. Pain is all I have, Momma. It's the friend looming at my side, sinister and smirking as it clenches down a hand upon my maw and forces me to bear the weight of it with a wicked laugh. Even my tears are hot and I hope they burn me, burn these disgusting unnatural eyes from my head so I never have to see my reflection again, never have to watch the others turn away and wince at the sight of my gaze. I would rather be blind than a failure, Momma.
Is that why you don't love me? Because I'm so different from you and Fae?
And I hear you, hushing me, and my lashes are thick and my tears are hot and I blindly turn towards you. "Momma," I choke, and I taste iron, and I cry because maybe you love me after all. "You came, Momma." Recklessly I turn and I bury myself into your shoulder, and you smell like everything wild and pure, and it's not like you at all. I shudder into stillness, muscles sore and spasming, unable to clench like I order to them. I can't be strong, either, Momma. I can't be either of the things you want me to be, and a new flood of tears comes so fast I hiccup. I was wrong. You didn't come for me, Momma.
But her voice is soft and her scent is warm, and I cry into her shoulder because she doesn't know I'm supposed to be pretty. So for a few moments, I can be myself. Ugly and broken and used by a world I'd never wronged. And when I open my eyes...she's clear. And...and Momma, she's just like me. And I stare and stare and stare because maybe, just maybe, I can be pretty like her too. How can something so beautiful stand to be near me? To touch me? Much less comfort me. I should be groveling at her hooves, apologizing for taking her colors upon my skin and making them something horrid and disfigured. But there is a hole inside me, Momma, and I want to rip it out because all it does is grow bigger every day, and I fear it will consume me. And she is like an angel, like a golden moon in the night sky that brings me so much comfort, and I am helpless to her.
"N-Not okay," is all that trembles and breaks like glass as it falls from my lips, my tears among them, but I lean into her and try to calm the shuddering as I sob. "D-Don't touch...too pretty...please, I too ugly, I ruin," I whisper, my voice torn and ragged like a delicate fabric ripped from rough handling. It hurts so I go quiet and stare at the ocean, a word I've yet to really learn, and wonder how the Gods can stand for me to be there. I am a stain on this landscape, hiding beneath the wing of my mirror image, far more beautiful than I will ever be. And when I can speak again there is only one thing I can choke, as if the words are knives and I can't swallow them.
"Why? Momma don't love me...why I not beautiful? Why I a freak?" A word I'm too young to know and it breaks in the middle and I sob.
Momma, I want to be a star.
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[P] i remember saying prayers for someone kind
