Inner Beauty

I watch her as she walks in the door, and that beautiful image she spent hours creating slowly begins to unravel.

She’s beautiful—no, beautiful is too small of a word. Stunning. Gorgeous. Breath-taking. Overused terms like that float around in my mind and I think of all the other women those terms have been used to describe and I want to create my own word for her, for the way her beauty shines from within.

She’s grinning in that infectious way as she kicks off her heels at the door and pads around on bare feet, her unraveling just beginning. Her hair is still perfect, somehow even making the strands that hang around her face (they escaped after one too many glasses of wine and she was pulling my hand to come dance with her) seem elegant.

She reaches the kitchen and rummages for a snack while she continues molting. Off next is her sweater, and she’s looking like my own personal runaway princess in a beautiful gown, her bracelets tinkling as she fixes a sandwich. Those will come off next too, her jewelry will be thrown in its same usual dish, and her bracelets and earrings and necklace will clunk against the china.

She abandons the midnight snack and starts removing her next layer. Pin after pin is removed from her hair as she shakes it out into its usual wild state, flowing and framing her face better than any angel’s halo could ever hope.

Next is the hardest, and she needs my help as I unzip her dress. She steps right out of it in the living room, watching as it crumples to the floor and she stands there in her underwear, not caring that the windows are open. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sight of her woke up the neighbors; she glows from within, my own personal sun.

She laughs loudly, not shy, not ashamed, but proud of her own skin. Her molting is almost complete, and as she pads to the bathroom I can’t help but follow. She gently wipes off her face, and as the makeup rubs off on our white towels she emerges baby-faced.

She falls into bed, smiling still, the unraveling process complete. It doesn’t matter in the slightest that she has wild hair or is bare-faced. Her gorgeous gown lays abandoned in the living room, and her jewelry no longer sparkles against her skin. But that’s no matter. Not for the first time I wrap her in my arms and think to myself, if souls have colors, hers is gold.