Self-Love Letter

Some days,

I look in the mirror and marvel.

at beauty and strength,

in bleeding abrasions and fresh tissue, alike;

growth from old scars, into new.

Awe lives here.

Of where this body has been;

of what this body’s endured;

of how I keep on living.

We have been places, seen things,

felt pain, joy, sorrow, and

endured.

And so, I marvel.

strength, truth, vulnerability

are lovely.

I am in love with my healing.

For I have scraped the bottom of the pit

and sighed at the top of the mountain.

Floated. Drowned. Crushed.

And rise again and again, I do.

I will.

I am vulnerable and indomitable.

I am steeled and soft.

I am quiet and as loud as can be.

All of it –

I am spirit, soul, and mind;

flesh, blood, bone, heart.

This body wades through depths,

and is seen through.

I stand. I rise. I continue.

Some days,

I look in the mirror and marvel.

and my body answers wisely:

Dear me,

I see you – all of you – and you are marvelous.

Soak in what a thrill that is. The bliss

of radical self-love;

0f dismantled layers

that stifled and wrenched and tried to erase.

Dear me,

Love from, and for,

who I am.