Day 11 – Love Yourself

To love another person, you must first love yourself
What a crock of shit,
A trite saying not worth the breath
To speak the words
I’ve loved others far more than I’ve ever loved myself

The endless nights spent
Staring at my misshapen form
In a toothpaste-stained mirror
Waiting for the moment
When I see past the truth and into the lie
Shaping the neural network of negativity
That lights my broken, barren brain
Knowing that I’ll always feel this way
I’m on the outside of an inside joke

The meagre love I have for myself
Has only come through others
Friends who stand by me
Lovers who ran past me
Strangers demand more of me

I don’t see my beauty until I catch
The whisper of love in a friend’s eye
I don’t think I’m funny until I hear
A laugh pulled from the throat of a stranger
I don’t feel real and grounded until I unmoor
From the world around me and I am pulled back
By the power of the people who believe in me

My sight can not be trusted, I wear glasses
Made with lenses of self-doubt and frames of self delusion
My hearing can not be trusted, I wear speakers
That blare paranoid, anxiety-ridden propaganda
My touch can not be trusted, I wear gloves
Lined with spikes that hurt me and others when they get close

Filtering who I am through my own mind is like
Trying to fill a cheese grater with milk
Messy, confusing and pointless
I have to trust others when they tell me
I’m worth it, I matter, I am more than what I know

So when I hear someone say,
To love another person,
You must first love yourself
I sneeze, shaking the shit smell
From my stopped sinuses
And I say

To love yourself, see through the eyes of others