L o v e

the way I thought I needed to love you

the way I needed you to love me

the way I thought you loved me in dark and in the light when really you loved me in anything but clothes

but I never wrote a poem about the way I needed to love myself

like the sun loves a rose bush blooming

like the sea loves the waves even when they're out of hand

like a tree loves its roots

but I forgot mine 

so I began to love me

I loved me in the dark

and in the light

in everything including clothes but I love me without clothes too

and I 

learned to love where I come from

to accept the pain of the past and heartbreak within a family 

to acknowledge the black clouds that will never leave my mind and treat my mental illness as a garden from which I can grow the most beautiful words

because

if I love myself

the way the sun loves a rose bush blooming

the way the sea loves the waves even when they're out of hand

like a tree loves its roots

because when I love myself this way

it is real love

and I will never think of what we had

as love

again