I am a black AFRICAN girl, 17 years of age. I know I am more fortunate than other black African girls because I have gone to school( still am), i have both my parents alive, my family is not rich but we manage and my parents take good care of me. I know this because I am very well informed, i watch news, documentaries and stuff like that.

i saw this beauty campaign while visiting the oprah show website(looking for the secret) and I had to write in simply because i have something to say about it!

As a girl in the current world, i am literally bombarded by the media perception of beauty everywhere I go. Its in the magazines I enjoy reading, the shows i enjoy watching even the music I enjoy listening to. And these images are not always healthy, but they are what I am surrounded by so they do affect me.

I do not have big hips and a big butt which here they call ATM-meaning African Trade Marks, and I am not as skinny as the models I see on fashion tv either. I don’t fit in those constraints. I am somewhere in the middle and it used to bother me, used to make me uneasy... until one day I just woke up in the morning and made a conscious decision to love my body. I love myself but I have never looked at my body as a thing to love until that day.

Nowadays i take time to look at my body, even look at the things I do not like about it e.g. my nose. I ll stare at it in the mirror and make up scenarios and play them until i feel 100% comfortable carrying that nose into the world! I also dance naked (of course alone..lol), it may seem stupid but it helps me to feel the love i have for this body I am in.

I know now that I am growing up, it is a MUST for me to have a positive body image as well as self image because out there in the world not everyone has good intentions with me. And they will use every negative thing i have about myself against me to try to break me. But I know, what I think, I am. So I will start with always thinking myself beautiful because that’s the first weapon of choice for these people.

I know (now that i ll be going to Russia to study medicine..hureey) People there are going to judge me by my skin color(something I have never ever either  understood or experienced) and I used to be scared, because its change, change always scares, but I am also looking forward to it. I know my being there will touch someone who used to be racist and if I catalyze even the simplest change in that ONE person, the change is worth it!

I have conquered the beauty issue, I KNOW I AM BEAUTIFUL BEYOND COMPARE, I KNOW I AM SMART, INTELLIGENT, I KNOW I HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER PEOPLE.

I have dreams and they are in the process of coming true.

U have to know that “change-if your world must change-has to come from within”.

And nobody will ever EVER make you feel as beautiful as you can.

from afar he looked at me and i was naked,
exposed , alone, yet
perfectly safe in his unwavering gaze.
he touched me and i felt excruciating pain
as millions of tiny hairs simultaneously pierced
through my skin
creating some form of exagarated goosebumpy effect.
as he went in for the kiss the
sound of my own heart beat
deafened me
I was scared out of my skin
until he held me, letting his deepest feelings
seep through his pores and into mine
these feelings raw and unrefined
were the composition of the air i so desperately breathed.
at that moment in time
i was my most alive.