In Bloom

I. SELFISH

I want to tell you something

What do you want to tell me?

I want to tell you just how horrible and imperfect I am and I want you to understand that there are centuries old battles inside of me and when it is all over the only thing left will be the ruins of the cities I tried to build

Stop. I don't want to hear it. You pity yourself for all the things that you have become because the truth scares you and guess what? It scares me too. It scares us all. 

I want to show you how I came into this world with a light of hope in my impossibly small body and how that hope has morphed into something ugly and dangerous and how I no longer feel like my body is a vessel but a thing to be used and discarded because I have never felt enough

That's just how the world works. 

I want to scream and cry and laugh because this skin I'm in is not beautiful or holy or wonderful it is chaos it is a field ravaged by famine it is what happens after a tornado rips through a town it is a raging inferno devouring everything that is good until there is nothing but ashes and charred flesh

Is this really what you want to show your daughter? 

I'm sorry that I was never good enough for them or for you or for me

You tell people to love and cherish themselves but you could never do it for yourself.

I wish I could be good enough

I'm sorry that you think that you aren't.

Because that's the thing isn't it don't we all just want to be remembered as someone to become immortal like the stars as unbreakable as stone I don't want to fade away into nothing I don't want to be forgotten I don't I don't I-

Would you like to hear the truth?

Please.

If you can't be strong for yourself

Don't let me fade.

Then be strong for her.

___

A/N: i know that this is a lot darker than my other works and it doesn't seem very positive, but my message is basically this: it's okay to be unhappy. It's okay to feel angry and ashamed and wretched, because if we don't experience the bad, how could we ever appreciate the good? we can spout as many pretty words as we want and try to convince others to accept themselves but the truth is: it's hard. Loving yourself is hard and it's a constant battle. sometimes we need to face the fact that we are not perfect, nobody is, and there will definitely be times when you aren't happy with yourself. it's how you choose to deal with it that matters.