Poetry & Art

What Beauty Is Not

by Emily Patterson • February 17, 2019

beauty does not exist between us
it is not a currency

beauty is not comparative,
a contest or commodity

beauty is not a number,
color, or category

beauty is breath: unfolding
in words spoken, in song
soaring upward and out,
taking up space in the silence
beauty is more than body

beauty does not exist between us
it radiates outward
from what dwells within,
that soft, singular spark

beauty is not a definition
but a way of being,
your being
and mine

beauty does not exist between us
it is not an arrival,
but an awakening

Like this post? View similar content here: The Things They Should Have Told Us: Poetry Series

Comment

by Emily Patterson

Emily Patterson is a writer and editor in Columbus, Ohio. She studied English and Music at Ohio Wesleyan University, where she graduated summa cum laude and received the F.L. Hunt Prize for most promising student in creative writing. Emily is currently pursuing an M.A. in Literature for Children and Young Adults at Ohio State University. Emily's work has been published in Spry Literary Journal, catheXis Northwest Press, Harness Magazine Issue III: Poetry & Motherhood, Eunoia Review, Pinkley Press, and elsewhere. Emily is currently writing her first chapbook of poems and a novel-in-verse for middle readers. She works as an editor for an educational publisher located in Columbus.