{"id":2846,"date":"2016-11-11T16:55:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T21:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/iris\/iris\/index\/flip\/i-am-not-beautiful\/"},"modified":"2018-08-03T13:51:59","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T17:51:59","slug":"i-am-not-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/iris\/index\/flip\/i-am-not-beautiful\/","title":{"rendered":"I am not beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

by Austin Hopkins, MS1<\/p>\n

\n

This is the part where you gasp, take my hand, and tell me that it\u2019s not true.<\/i><\/p>\n

I have one request\u2014don\u2019t ask me to recant what I don\u2019t believe.<\/p>\n

What does the word even mean, beautiful<\/i>,<\/p>\n

You told me that everything about me is perfect<\/p>\n

You told me that what I am studying to be is heroic<\/p>\n

You told me that who I am is perfect<\/p>\n

You told me I\u2019m warm, soft-hearted, a kind soul<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t like the words that you\u2019ve covered me with,<\/p>\n

A suffocating blanket of good will,<\/p>\n

I am real, I am more than the idea the words aim to be<\/p>\n

My head is sore, crammed full of temperamental emotions<\/p>\n

My soul is wary, having bared it all and had the chapel burned down<\/p>\n

My hands are cold, the knuckles a dry blue, my lips chapped<\/p>\n

My heart beats inconsistently: too heavy, too fast, too much<\/p>\n

My beard has holes from scarring that can\u2019t ever be filled<\/p>\n

My eyes are green, not like emeralds but like the moss growing on the rotting tree trunk<\/p>\n

I agree, they\u2019re striking, but best on a cloudy day<\/p>\n

Yes, you did see a tremor, I laugh and say I won\u2019t be marching into surgery<\/p>\n

The pitch is striking, it\u2019s questionable that I\u2019ve actually completed puberty<\/p>\n

So I look downwards, past the battlefield of fingernails bitten down to the quick<\/p>\n

Sometimes painted black as a public I dare you to fuck with me<\/i><\/p>\n

I hear myself breath out (the old, faithful wheeze) and look down\u2014<\/p>\n

The chicken legs. My mother tells me I\u2019m too skinny, are you sure you\u2019re eating?<\/i><\/p>\n

But I smile, I can and I will the smile, it\u2019s honest, I promise<\/p>\n

The smile that\u2019s less outside and more in\u2014<\/p>\n

When I walk down the hallway, draped in the preliminary status symbol<\/p>\n

(th<\/em>e white coats are coming, the white coats are coming<\/i>)<\/p>\n

The accompanying popular fantasy: I am more than human, a burgeoning demigod\u2014<\/p>\n

It says that one day I can heal, I can turn back mortality temporarily<\/p>\n

Denouncing my pride would be dishonest, I am proud<\/p>\n

I\u2019m proud of my precision and compassion and imperfection<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t tell me that I\u2019m beautiful<\/i>, that\u2019s not really it, it\u2019s not true to who I am.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Austin Hopkins, MS1 This is the part where you gasp, take my hand, and tell me that it\u2019s not true. I have one request\u2014don\u2019t ask me to recant what I don\u2019t believe. What does the word even mean, beautiful, You told me that everything about me is perfect You told me that what I … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8922,"featured_media":0,"parent":2610,"menu_order":47,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-2846","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","odd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nI am not beautiful - Iris: The Art and Literary Journal - UNC School of Medicine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I am not beautiful - Iris: The Art and Literary Journal - UNC School of Medicine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Austin Hopkins, MS1 This is the part where you gasp, take my hand, and tell me that it\u2019s not true. 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