There is beauty in the stars that burns. For some it is the last breath. It travels in space for millions of lightyears, but where it comes from all is dead, broken, scattered in the vastness.

And beauty encompasses the infinite number of galaxies, the deep, boundless space, bejeweled with cosmic dust, heavenly bodies hurtling this way and that, combustible, ignitable, incendiary, and unstable. In it, head over heels, breathless, like moths to a flame, we do not stand a chance.

All that is beautiful is in the Kayan neck, though so easily it could break, and there are the earlobes of Kenyan women so stretched to shocking distortedness.

The Ethiopian eyes are moonpools of legends, but in places they are overpowered by the imprints left by painful wounds on the skin. In pursuit of beauty, the Tigrai are scarred for life.

But leave them to beauty’s cultural quirks. Every scar has a story.

Of courage.

Of conquest.

Of recklessness or ineptitude.

Of victimhood or victory.

To a scar some of us are drawn, as if to a life we only dare to dream.

How to explain the attractiveness of the wounded heart, the tortured soul, the twisted mind? What’s so beautiful about the cut lip, the eyebrow slit, or the gap teeth? And what about the worn-out, used up spirit, as evidenced by runny mascara, cried off makeup, the battle-weary body, the emaciated frame, the ruffled hair? More than to the physical feature, we are drawn to imagined adventures, prodded by the savior complex or, on the contrary, beguiled by the show of force. Maybe these deformities recall the warrior spirit of our tribal past. Maybe it is not exactly to our senses but to our DNA, in which embedded is our tribal past, as well as our heritage as hunters and our nature in the wild, that these disfigurements appeal. To be protected or to protect. To be the hero or the subject. To dominate or to worship.

Danger is beauty. Its eye is like a cat’s on the hunt. Its fingers are claws or talons dripping in blood. Its lips are a vampire’s right after a feeding. It is the weapon by which Cupid targets his prey and leaves them helpless, mad and madder, crazy in love.

A rose is like any other rose, until you pluck it and, in Saint-Exuperian fashion, make it your own. It’s the same with people. A pair of eyes, through which the soul makes itself manifest. A pair of lips with which to whisper sweet-nothings or whimper at life’s disappointments. A pair of arms in which to cradle all that is special between two people. A pair of legs with which to run, chasing and being chased, with which, folded at the knees, eternal devotion is expressed.

They’re no different from any other pair—these eyes, these lips, these arms, these legs—but they can be special in every way, more special than the eyes with which you flirt across a roomful of strangers, the lips that you kiss for the first time, the arms that meaningfully drape around your shoulders, the legs that, peeking out of a slit in a skirt, make your heart skip a beat.

There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion. ―Edgar Allan Poe

Yes, beauty is in the details, the distance between the eyes or the depths in them, the shape of the lips or the way they match the intensity of yours upon meeting, the way the arms lock you in place like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, the way the legs straddle your hips in the heat of the moment.

Beauty.

It is a portal to another world. It draws you to a life that isn’t going to be life as you know it. It is the key that unlocks universes that, as yet, do not seem to exist. It stirs in you the curiosity that kills the cat or breathes a new life to your dead senses. It calls your attention innocuously enough, a wisp of hair tucked behind the ear, a voice that sounds like an angel’s whisper, the lusciousness of the side of a neck, the small of the back, the sparkle in the eye, the crispness of a shirt, muscles twitching beneath fabric, the life lived in an outrageous dress, the scent left in the trail.

Beauty.

It’s the light at the end of a tunnel, to which all your attention is directed. It is the shade under the scorching noonday sun. It is the wing in a building, from which you are forbidden. The rising flame in a cold, dark night. Both the shelter and the storm. Both the harbor and the tempest. Both pain and pleasure. Heaven is its reward. Hell is its retribution. It is the stuff of mysteries, otherworlds swarming with woe, wile, and wickedness.

You are strong, but beauty leaves you weak. Always, it is a struggle to look away, to resist the urge to touch, to give in to the temptation. Pray that you be blind to beauty that doesn’t last, a cause of sorrows, a source of guilt, but blind to what kind of beauty?

Alas, beauty is a chameleon, an opportunist, an impostor. It haunts you like a ghost. It lurks in the shadows. It inhabits your dreams. It is a mirage on your path. It is a voice in your head.

You can run.

You can hide.

It finds you.

Always.