Makeup

Please don’t lighten your cheek.
I want to see the scar
that tells me you were bitten when you were five
by the dog you named Daisy.

And don’t blush your lips red
a deeper red can only go skin deep.

And your blemishes
(which are few mind you
like fossils are to rocks
or sails to sky)
tell me you are not perfect.
Perfection though sits on a shelf
finished and static
an ornament or doll.

Be unfinished and imperfect
for you were not meant to exist
as a fixture of beauty
but to be an experiencer of existence
a microcosm of striving and growth.
And your outward beauty
will come of forgetting yourself in the world.