Look at yourself

Not through your own contaminated lens

But through another’s

Through a loved one’s, through a stranger’s even

But not through your own

Because your eyes have become much too hazy

Distorted by a thick layer of self-hatred that’s been accumulating over all these years that you’ve been viewing yourself through a broken mirror

One that you shattered yourself

By hurling your sticks and your stones

and your sharpened words

Cutting your precious skin with daggers of self-depreciation

Shrinking yourself to fit into the black mirror

on the blank screen of your phone

My darling

You are so much more than the cramped four walls

of your disease-ridden brain

Don’t you know by now

That your orbit spans miles wide and mountains high

So much further than your boney fingertips could ever begin to reach

For too long you’ve hunted your own body in

a homemade arena

You’ve written yourself into your own tragedies for as long as you could hold a pen

And used a self-portrait as target practice for as long as you could hold a gun

But why? And for what?

Why do you believe whole-heartedly in the opinions of a stranger only when their words shoot to kill you

But paint them as a liar when they aim to heal you?

Why do you work tirelessly to please others

But decide the line must be drawn at your own two feet?

Why do you trust in empty, hate-filled designations

But deny them when they tell you all the things you ought to love about yourself? That damnit, you ought to love yourself!

Because you

Yes, you

Are only one you have

From the barren start to the bitter end

So make your home a comfortable one

Treat your soul as a loveable one

I think that maybe you’ll find

it will make your life a more bearable one