This poem was written by my cousin's sixteen year old grand-daughter. It gave me food for thought and I hope it might do likewise for others.

Hilda

HOW TO LOOK BETTER
 

How to look better
This is never easy
Look at your face, but don't look too hard.
See that mole? Those freckles? Crows' feet?
Only you can see them.
Don't look too hard.
Do you see the tired eyes,the furrowed brow, and the downturned smile?
Feel your face, and the emotions pounding underneath it.
Rub your eyes – we  all get wrinkles eventually
Feel where your emotions have poured out.
Salty tears, preparing to fill a bathtub, letting briny ocean waves wash over a lonely island, an island that is "ugly"
Now smile
Do you hear your  laughter? Do you see the life shining in your eye?
Now speak
Do you feel the air soften? Do you feel the spaces around you fill?
Like music, bright orbs of love and intelligence float lightly
Or the looming shadows of cynicism, hatred and criticism resound in the thick air
The air is filled all the same.
Now laugh,
It's not forced.
Somewhere inside you is a happy place, a sanctuary of memory.
For a minute you can forget divorce, death and the diverging of two thoughts that were supposed to mingle together carelessly but didn't
Laugh because you have beauty stored in your heart.
Laugh because you have bottled emotions of hatred and abuse that you want to let free.
They will not always be there.
But sometimes they will hit you as you sit in the corner of some coffee shop on an idle Tuesday
Or maybe when you stare into the mirror, not even attempting to see the millions of memories that swirl in the beauty that is your eyes, because you are looking at the wrinkles that lay beside them, formed from years of laughter.
Don't look too hard.
Realise that those little lines indicate how many years you have been on this earth and inspired people, made them laugh, made them feel something.
The faint scars on your legs are because you are a tiger.
Your stripes, scars, speckles, smudges, stains, mark you. They individualize you. They separate you from the projections of perfection, lies.
They make you a part of something big. They draw you into a group of reality, truth. When you feel the bumps you can say this is me. Your skin is cracked because it can only attempt to hold back your endless ideas and emotions that pulse inside you.
Don't look too hard
Because when you look too hard, your brow furrows, your smile wanes, you cannot hear your laughter.
You see the lines as lines.
Not as the markings of a warrior
How to feel better,
See yourself for who you are, not masked by imperfection
Your beauty can be heard in the sound of your voice, your laughter
See yourself as others see you
Don't look too hard

                                                          Kira Hoff. Vancouver.