my middle name is grace

My middle name is Grace, but I’ve always been a fidgety person. I have shaken countless dinner tables with my bouncing knee. I’ve torn off the label of every bottle I’ve ever held. There has been a smoking habit here and there, nails that were bitten down to the core, and a set of eyes that never seem to stop fluttering.

Traits that would be, could be considered endearing if it weren’t for the body that inhibited them. To be acceptably obnoxious, one must be undeniably intoxicating. There should be a chorus of strings when walking into a room, a collective gasp of acknowledgment, and all this could make a klutz charming, but I am just adjacent to conventionally attractive.

An asymmetrical face atop a truly unremarkable figure. I’m by no means, ugly, but I will never be stop-in-your-tracks, take-a-picture-to-savor-it, sell-your-car-home-and-soul-to-have-her beautiful. In an Instagram age, I am constantly faced with my face. My generation lives to live in the moment. Capturing everything we do because we have to prove we are here. Paying for data to savor life. But photography does not lend well to the unphotogenic. My shape is awkard and it never seems to settle and it shows up unsure and stale against a timeline full of effortless poses and pouting lips.

Maybe it is a blessing. That if I must be almost ugly, I will always be blurry. My figure and face will never quite entirely captured. Like someone ran their hand across my portrait, causing the paint to smear together and leave a streaky, undistigishable mess. I can’t be beauty and grace, but I can keep moving and save face.