My Darling, Never Believe You Are Not Worthy Of Love

I tried convincing myself I was broken
So I could find the locked cogs in my clock tower
And return them to working condition.
As if life operated like simple mechanics.
As if my heart, my brainwaves,
Were meant to beat consistently with the metronome of the second hand.
Tick tick tick.

If I can just find the pieces that need to be changed,
Exchanged,
This hurt will go away, I rationed.

Love of mine,
Stop examining yourself as something to be fixed.
A being cannot be dissected into good and bad parts.
Strengths and weaknesses.
We are single traits with positive and negative outcomes.
Depending on the context.

This hurt is you.
All of this is you.
Just listen, my love,
Listen to your divine heart,
Listen to how it remains loyal
As your mind goes frantic—I am broken, I am broken
Thump thump, your heart is beating.

Listen to her
Thump (hand on heart).
Sit beside her.
Say, I know, love.
You are not your favorite self right now.
I know the being who stepped forward to take her place,
Scares you.
Especially when her coping mechanisms
Sometimes lead to five extra miles on the treadmill,
Sometimes lead to a skipped meal.
Especially when she looks a bit like the person…
You thought you left behind during recovery.

Only to realize, recovered and cured are not the same.
Only to realize, this piece of you will always be in recovery
And she will always be there when times get hard.
But don’t you turn away in disgust.
Do not turn your back
On your own kin
On your own skin
Hold her hand.

Stop being so mad at her, this self starved for a sense of control.
She is doing the best she can.
Don’t enable her,
For you have witnessed her grow into an abusive partner,
But see her for what she really is,
A scared little girl.
Afraid of failure, afraid of being alone.
Craving to shove food down her throat to make the uncertainty go away,
Only to spend the following hours focused on nothing
But the discomfort of feeling full.
Wondering how such a full life could leave her feeling so empty, sometimes.

Hold the old photograph of yourself as a 6 year old girl,
A round belly in a one-piece with sand between her toes,
Try telling her she’s not beautiful.
Try telling her she’s not perfect the way she is right in that moment.
When did we grow out of that place in time,
Me and all my parts?
When did we stop seeing our own body as a magical creature, through which we were meant to explore the world?
When did we stop seeing ourselves as whole, but instead as a series of “problem areas”?
When did we stop desiring to reside within our own body,
but instead try to float outside ourselves so as not to be stuck within FAT FAT FAT?

And when did we start thinking we had to earn our love from the universe?
Why can’t we see it already loves us back?

Little girl,
Stop believing you have to make yourself easy to love,
Smart enough, skinny enough, fun enough.
You are enough– as you are now.
Little girl,
Stop believing that if you let go of the earth,
Gravity will not still hold you.
Won’t still rock you in its cradle.
Little girl, don’t you know how powerful you are?
Little girl, don’t you know how capable you are?
Little girl.
Know that if there is anything I am betting on in this world
It is you.