Self-Love

 I cannot love you

 No matter the strikingness of your name

Their golden etchings that seem engraved into my cheek 

Do you see how brightly it burns?

As my mirror paints it 

Do you see that even as you confess

I confess to my own person that I cannot love you 

For your beauty does not feed a star's jealousy 

It does not brush its fingers upon the farthest hanging fruit 

Owning the sky like it does the ground 

Does your grace compare to twinning green blades that get up when crushed ?

That grow when cut ?

Are your fingers nimble enough to brush through silk?

Brown 

Blond

Black

Do your lashes fall upon your back and not your eyes?

Eyes that seem to lack that God-like bravery

I am unable to care for you as I do them

For your words do not hold the power to draw waves from still water 

Your name though resting upon my face finds its way to my lips

But I cannot love you 

As I cannot love myself 

For my hair coils like wild things 

A snake that latches upon limbs

Just as vengeful as my skin 

Dark and untrustworthy

I cannot love you 

Because you look like me

Because fair, white

Rulers of ground and sky 

They fell from the heavens in form of snow

Cold and unflinching unperturbed by the cries of the dying green 

Must it cover all corners of the globe?

Must it take over even the confines of my home? My mind? 

For as my eyes feast upon prize every day and all the time 

I wished the mirror could paint me as well as it does them

That it'd add more pink than brown 

That I'd be able to say I love you instead of I'd love to be able to