Entry Eight: Pretty, On My Terms

But real freedom is softer than that. It’s knowing I can still shine without setting myself on fire.

Thoughts & Confessions Turned into Verses

Every part of my life becomes a photoshoot
because I’m scared no one will care
if it isn’t worth capturing.

If I stopped performing,
would anyone still stay?
Sometimes I just want someone to say,
“You don’t have to make it pretty for me.”

A gentle nudge always brings me back.
The lights showcase the happiness
I reflect in the vanity of my life--
especially when I create.
And in my happiness, I found peace.
I found balance.
I found myself.

It’s time to make space
for the boy behind the glitter
the one who stays
when I have nothing left to glamorize.
I’m not a sad boy.
Just a gentle, dramatic, confident one--
built from heartbreak, healing,
a little bit of Hollywood,
​and still soft enough to believe in love.

​Penned in the Glow of the Mirror

For so long, I thought I had to perform to be loved—that beauty had to come with pain, that being seen meant always being edited.
But real freedom is softer than that. It’s knowing I can still shine without setting myself on fire.
I don’t have to earn love through survival. I don’t have to make every moment sparkle to matter. I can have both the glitter and the grounding—the mirror and the truth.

And now, I do.
I used to want applause. Now I want peace. I used to edit the pain out. Now I give it a voice. Because the real power isn’t in being perfect—it’s in being whole.

The real glow is peace. Its presence. It’s being fully, unapologetically myself—on my terms.

That’s what it means to be pretty…to me least. 

Xo,
Paul

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