I am looking for beauty.

Sometimes I wonder, does this make me shallow? Will I become like the rest, unable to see anything beyond a clean surface? I don't know. I don't know much for certain anymore.
When I was little, I knew everything, and everything was easy. I liked playing outside more than dolls, but I liked dolls sometimes too. I never wore makeup. I was in a play once, and the eyeliner didn't wash off. I wore it to school the next day and was mortified. I couldn't stand the thought that someone might think I was looking for beauty.

Now my dresser is covered in powders and paints. Black and blue eyeliner, red and purple eyeshadow. Lip gloss and lip stick and jewelry I never wear.

I don't even know what beauty is, these days. Boys in eyeliner and girls in fishnet? I know that beauty and pretty are different. Pretty is lip gloss and miniskirts, mainstream and shameful. I was never pretty. I could almost be beautiful, maybe, if the light and the makeup were right. But only just barely. It made me cry, sometimes. I wanted to be beautiful and strong. All I can manage is noticeable and stubborn.

Maybe I am shallow. But there's more to beauty than eyeliner and mascara, I know. It can be the sound of someone's voice. It can be a touch, a feeling, light and shadow mixed against the ceiling. Beauty can be an exquisite kind of pain, that makes your breath catch in your throat and your eyes wet. The curve of familiar handwriting on worn paper.

Truth is beauty; even the search for beauty is a kind of beauty. The knowledge of striving for something greater, of searching for that perfection. The first sign of this that we have is the quest for the Holy Grail; those who looked for it were seeking beauty, whether they knew it or not. Seeking beauty, no matter the form, has been going on since we first conceived the concept.
I am looking for beauty.