Free Verse · Love
What I Mean by Beautiful
You think it's the dress.
It isn't the dress.
It's you on a Tuesday,
hair tied with the pencil you lost,
laughing at your own joke
before the punchline —
that. I mean that.
Original poem © QuillOak — personal sharing is permitted.
“What I Mean by Beautiful” by The QuillOak Editors — quilloak.com/poems/what-i-mean-by-beautiful
Quick facts
- Poem
- What I Mean by Beautiful
- Poet
- The QuillOak Editors
- Length
- 7 lines
- Form
- Free Verse
- Themes
- Love, For Her, Short
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Original QuillOak text. Personal sharing is permitted; other reuse requires permission.
- Author record
- The QuillOak Editorstoday
- Source record
- QuillOak originalWhat I Mean by Beautiful, authored for QuillOak by The Quillery
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 9286e59ace326ab5…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Keep reading
Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
William Shakespeare · 1609
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds
William Shakespeare · 1609
Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
William Shakespeare · 1609
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips' red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
14 lines · sonnet