What It Means To Love Yourself

by kaylajones2001

May 12, 2018

I suppose the greatest lesson I’ve learned from sewing paragraphs

Together with twenty six letters from an alphabet I learned when

I was just a child, is that loving oneself is a back-breaking effort

That requires a lot of clenched teeth and screaming matches that

Are silent and scratched bodies hidden inside of showers and

Inside of clothing you secretly wish you could discard

Loving yourself requires a lot of mornings that leave you collapsed

In front of a mirror that’s whole while you are broken, still trying

To pick up the pieces, still trying to call yourself beautiful

Without clenching your teeth, trying to write ‘goddess'

Across your chest with love instead of burning, white hot hatred

You keep buried underneath your tongue like an ink well

Loving yourself is trying to not call someone a liar when they call you pretty, it’s trying not to downplay compliments

And instead thank someone instead of denying it until your face turns red

And veins stand out on your neck and your tongue bleeds at

Having to explain the hatred you feel for yourself without

Actually saying you hate yourself

Loving yourself is trying not to paint over your stretch marks

Trying not to say to your reflection that you don’t want to be you anymore

Trying not to force your body to be like clay so you can mold it

And shape it into the curves that boys drool over and plump up

An ass that you can shake and be proud of so at least then it’ll

Fill the empty space inside of your jeans

It’s trying not to break your collarbone, shatter yourself into pieces

So you can fit your broad shoulders into the mold of “petite” and “feminine” and absolutely fucking perfect

Because apparently being perfect isn’t something you can do well

Loving yourself is like trying to love a stranger you just met

Who you despise to the very core of your being

Who just keeps showing up whether you want them to or not

And they annoy the absolute shit out of you, but you can’t seem

To shake them off of you so you’re stuck with them for life

That’s exactly how it feels to live in this body of mine

Loving yourself is like stepping into a new house that you have

To spend thousands of dollars to fix, but your broke and can

Only afford Ramen noodles and even then it’s sketchy

But you have all these dreams of being grandiose and beautiful

Like you’re neighbors, but you secretly know you’ll never

Actually get to their level so while they’re living in mansions

You’re stuck in a cardboard home with no decorations

Loving yourself is like waging in war with no weapons and you don’t

Know the name of the enemy you’re facing

Loving yourself is experiencing the upmost amount of hatred

A human being could possibly muster and it’s not a good feeling

To be filled with poison, to wake up each morning and cry

At your reflection, to go to bed each night wishing you could

Be like the girls on social media who are just as sad and insecure

As you, but know how to use a filter and know how to use angles

To their advantage and it’s not a good feeling to cry yourself

To sleep wishing you could be different and better

So instead of trying to save money to get plastic surgery

Or marring myself until I became a mass of ragged flesh

I decided to take an old spiral notebook and a blue ink pen

And write down exactly how I felt about myself so each morning

I sat in front of my bedroom mirror and wrote poem after poem

About the things I hated and every night I wrote poem after poem

About the things I hated until I started writing about the things I loved

Until I started comparing my eyes to honey drizzle on a summer day

And my skin to chocolate that anyone would be proud to taste

And my hips to gateways of life, because as a woman I am a

Gateway for brand new life and I don’t know how that isn’t beautiful

I started comparing my nose to the mountains when they have fresh snow

And my lips to clouds that tasted like sunshine and I compared

My lack of curves to flat roads you drive on when the night sky

Is clear and you are lying beside the person of your dreams

In the bed of a truck, underneath a blanket that smells like dew

And vanilla and I started comparing myself to fucking Aphrodite

Because I am a queen, so it’s strange how the presence

Of a pen and a notebook and a couple of free verse poems

Can change the way you look at yourself and because of poetry

I started to learn how to love myself and that is the greatest

Accomplishment of my life, that is the greatest life lesson it has

Gifted me with because to love oneself in a world bent on making sure you don’t

Is a rebellious act and i’m a rebellious soul

And it feels so good to wake up now, sit in front of that mirror

And find a million positive things about myself

Without ever stumbling upon the negative

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