Long before we knew what we wanted—we learned how to look like we did.
We copied what we saw.
From music videos. From magazines. From older friends who “knew more.”
It wasn’t about curiosity anymore.
It was about performance.
We tilted our hips a certain way.
Let a shirt hang lower.
Learned to laugh just enough to seem open, but not too much to seem desperate.
None of it was us.
But we wore it like skin.
We weren’t taught to explore who we were—we were taught to attract.
To signal interest.
To mimic approval before we ever understood desire.
The bodies we copied weren’t just famous.
They were curated.
They knew how to stand.
How to lean.
How to smirk just enough to be seen without being too available.
So we tried it.
In the mirror.
In selfies.
In the locker room.
In front of our crushes—hoping they wouldn’t notice we had no idea what we were doing.
We sexualized ourselves without context.
We experimented without clarity.
We thought being chosen meant we had chosen.
Sometimes, we invited attention we weren’t ready for.
Other times, we craved it just to feel seen.
We thought the way to become someone was to try on someone else first.
And in doing so, many of us misplaced our own body.
Our own voice.
Our own pace.
We didn’t skip the phase of becoming.
We were just so busy performing someone else’s story,
We forgot to write our own.