Beauty

Who knew the absolute adjective could overpower the superlative?

Your face looked so delicate pressed against my coat. My right hand traced the outline of your face and held your cheek. You felt so warm right next to me. The gentle breeze embraced your hair and tied it into tiny knots. Your tangled hair still looked suited to you, resembling braids tied with such care that it almost made me want to sit behind you, comb your hair slowly so as to ensure not one strand is harmed or worse, pulled away from your scalp.

Ah, another scenario to fantasize about before going to bed tonight; braiding their hair.

But how could I fantasize about you when you were crying? 

“What’s wrong?”

“I- They said I was ugly.”

“Oh no, how could they say that? You are the most beautiful being in the universe.”

“I know, you say that all the time, but I can’t help but feel insecure. Why don’t they think like you?”

“It’s alright. They were mean and now you are hurt. Come on, let’s get the best ice cream and watch the best movie while I kiss your face and tell you that you are the best.”

But don’t you know, the meanest were all hurt at one point?

I was proven correct when I looked at what you had become now. Fire blazed beside you as if it were a pet you had trained, on you as if it couldn’t stop spreading, behind you along with the lives you stole, in your palm as if it were under your control, in your hair as if it desired to burn away the same tiny knots that I was supposed to untangle. And in your eyes, as if it were the only thing keeping you insanely sane.

I know for a fact it was not the hate you received but something so much stronger. I realise that perhaps, this was not so vile. Perhaps, you are not so vile.

Now that you are burning, you are no longer the most beautiful but you are beauty. You are not beautiful, you represent beauty. True, raw beauty. 

Your beauty lives

Stays in a world as cruel as this

My love, you've burned 

But your beauty surged