I have acne on my skin.
Four dollars to my name.
A rumble on the right side of my car.
Stretch marks on my body like scars.
Hair that won’t hold a curl.
Shame that dances in my stomach in a twirl.
Do you think you could love me just like this?
I’m just a girl.
After all.
–S.
I’m not wearing pants. I have lacy panties on sporting holes on both sides because I’m anything but careful. Always getting dressed in a rush or running late.
My hair is greasy and lays in a fallen bun on the side of my head, not even the top, and my face needs to be washed.
I’m wearing a crop top yellow Wu-Tang shirt that is flecked with oil from the pesto pasta I ate earlier and no bra.
I am anything but flawless.
Which is why I have been avoiding writing a list of things I love about myself all week. I just figured that I wouldn’t have much to say, but I’m doing it as a practice of self-love.
I assume I’ll have ten nice things to say. I can manage ten.
I imagine myself opening the Word document and staring at the flashing cursor as I struggle to think of likeable qualities, I can’t even touch any loveable ones. I imagine feeling embarrassed as ten and twenty and thirty minutes pass and I’ll blank by five likeable qualities.
But I surprise myself. The loveable qualities pour out of me, until I’m up to fifty. I keep thinking, okay, that’s probably it. But then there’s another, and another, and I don’t even touch the likeable ones.
Because I’m focused on the loveable.
Focused on the love.
Focused on the self.
Focused on me.
–S.
The Messy Middle 🖤 