Inner aesthetics

Everyone is ugly, even the best of us. It’s underneath the skin, in those places that make up can’t fix and the tweezer can’t reach.

We each are privy to our own capacity for compassion and cruelty, though others may get a telling glimpse . Only you know though, that you once kicked a cat or beat up a street kid or wished ill on an enemy. That you betrayed a friend or cheated in an exam or made your mother cry.

Our secrets are also our sins.

I know my shame by that acrid tang in the back of my mouth, almost like lime, that means: you should not have done that / that was wrong / that was inexcusable / take it back.

Ramadaan is an introspective month for me. Looking back on the people I may have wronged, hurt, stomped on or slated, I wonder if any reason is a good enough reason to have done so. I wonder too if sorry is too puny a word to say, especially when I don’t even remember all of their names or the ambit of my transgressions.

Nevertheless, I am working assiduously on a kinder heart, a softer tongue and better deeds. Everyone can be beautiful too, even the worst of us.