Can't make me beautiful... can buy me the
plastic surgery, can suck the fat out of
my thighs, stomach and anywhere else where
I'm too much like one of Ruben's women, can
inject saline in my chest until I swell to a
perfect size C+, can carve my nose down and
make it slender and eliminate the bump on the end, can
tuck up my chin and even out my skin and fix
my ears so they lay perfectly flat on
the sides of my head--but I'm still not beautiful.

Can make me over... can get me the slinky
red Gucci dress and Prada handbag, can put me
in towering stiletto heels because even surgery can't
make me taller, can hire the makeup artists to spend
hours every morning smoothing out every flaw,
imagined or otherwise, on every speck on my skin that
the public can see, can hire another artist to
do my hair, most of it extensions and all of it dyed a
perfect sunny blonde, every time it suits the fickle
world's fancy to change it--but, try as you might, I'm
still not beautiful.

Can make me over till I'm like a burn victim, but
with a fire that scorched me from the inside out, charring my
soul and spirit until I see imagined scars in the
mirror each morning, until I'm as false and plastic as
a child's plaything, can make me so that strangers see
my picture in magazines and think that they love me--but
you can't make him love me out of choice.
You can't make me beautiful.