To Love Yourself

Photo By John Boris 

She had these eyes, right?

These big round eyes that pierced

That spoke truths

That she learned to cross stitch herself

With a pattern that she found on the bottom shelf of aisle 12

labeled “to love yourself”

Real small lettering, real loose, real round

The kind of lettering that dresses itself to the 9s

That sways smooth into its lover

And dots itself with cinnamon i’s

She came across it when

She was looking and searching for a part of herself

After the eyes she had been looking with were washed

One too many times with smudged fingers

After her world collapsed onto her shoulders and her legs sunk into the soil

After she felt her seeds were no longer
Strong enough to grow a forest rooted with thick tree trunks

And big leafy homes

After she wrung her thoughts so much

Like wet laundry

That her skin was hanging loose on the clothes line

And her bones were sitting in the corner

Drying

Waiting

Waiting for that fleshy bit to wrap her warm again...

She holds onto that pattern

As a friendly reminder:

To love yourself is beauty, baby

your whole self

your faulted self

your ever growing

ever sprouting self

You are beauty, baby