Birthmark

My mother called them “fairy kisses”. So at night I imagined a hundred little fairies, softly pressing their lips to my skin, leaving behind a trail of magical rose-like prints from my torso to eyelid. At this point in my childhood, I had no idea what a port wine stain birthmark was. I knew none of my friends had the entire left side of their body tattooed in pinkish-purple blemishes, but fairies were cool, so I didn’t mind. 

As I grew older, being cool started to mean being the same. By fifth grade, kids have “manners”, so they stopped asking me about my birthmark and started talking about it behind my back instead. I stopped believing in fairies, and started believing the rumors at school, that said I was burned in a fire. I stopped believing in fairies and started believing in makeup. In the wonders of ultra-coverage concealer and long sleeve hoodies. In 8th grade, I tried getting laser treatment. The six-month procedure uses a high-powered laser to essentially burn off the capillaries beneath my birthmark, erasing my internal cells in pursuit of some artificial, pale veneer. Because that’s exactly what I was chasing. The laser faded my marks, but only marginally. I still spent hours in front of the mirror, tears streaming down my scarred skin – crying that I looked like this and crying that I was shallow enough to care. In a world where children are constantly told to just “be yourself” and “love your body”, I felt like a horrible, selfish person for being unhappy with mine. 

In some ways, when kids stopped asking what was wrong with me, I got what I always wanted; people acted as though my birthmark was invisible. They no longer had the ignorance to be so rude – the ignorance to be genuinely curious. But there is only so much of me – approximately two-thirds – that isn’t stained in fairy kisses. With no more questions, I felt like two thirds of a person instead of whole. And so finally, I began to ask them myself. 

I took up writing. Gradually, what started as a hobby morphed into a healing mechanism – one more powerful than any high-voltage laser. I had spent so much of my life staring at and scrutinizing my skin that I never considered examining the flesh that lay beneath it. Writing allowed me to ask these questions. I could write a new definition of myself – my whole self – with my inspiration drawn from within, instead of the skin above it. Through reflective narratives and creative poetry, I was able to craft my own voice, a new skin that I projected to the world, where the ideas and values that I carried on my sleeve were suddenly more important than anything there physically. 

I’m not going to give up my concealer. I’m not here to tell you that I have given up wearing all makeup and live a fulfilling life totally embracing my birthmark. No, I still dabble on some foundation here and there, but I no longer need it to survive, to feel adequate in the world. I no longer see beauty as a thing achieved by an eraser; a beauty blender gently stamping out my uniqueness. Throughout my teenage years, I’ve been able to find other areas of my life, ones that stem from my heart, and not my skin, that have helped me redefine my definition of beauty. I see beauty in passion, drive, in finding a love for something and pursuing it. I see beauty in having skin and owning it, and then having the audacity to voice it to the world with pride. I am proud to use my voice, both written and vocal, to craft my own narrative, so that I am no longer the girl who was burned in a fire. I am the girl who started one.