Don't tell me a condescending lie, when I’d rather the ugly truth.

Don't give me any pretty words

No false promises to soothe

I am a warrior, I am more than used

To this.

Do you really think I love you so little

That betraying me would make a difference?

I am not the fragile little thing you once knew

I have grown. I have had to grow.

Like a flower forced to bloom

A child growing up too soon

I am not a girl. I have seen too much of the world.

So don’t bother trying to douse the fire.

The fire’s in my eyes.

Written with- elizaschulyer 

If I compared you to a red rose 

It's red never ending passion

Your careful soft kiss shows

Your love turns red ashen

Your serene blue eyes

That to none do compare

Turns my stomach to butterflies

As does your soft blonde hair

My love to you

Could never grow old

'Cause all that you do

Is more precious than gold

You are mine and I am yours

Lets dance together on heavens floors.

I may compare you to the sunniest day, although the contrast is stark at play. 

The trees and earth may sway as the world spins its shade.

While all of these things motion into gray,

 you're like a room full of silver embellished in good spirit and founded on grace. 

Neither above or below the skies and seas could never match a better hue as striking as you.

The winds shaking is steadily bending views,but nothing breaks you.

The sun may sleep yet there is no depth deep enough to cover your light.

As the times come and go, as age takes its tole, as long as you're alive you carry your glow, anyone able knows.

I.

The first time I thought about my body

I was a sticky thirteen.

My religion teacher was always telling us,

"Your body is a temple,"

which just meant,

"Don't have sex,"

because

you know

Jesus Hate Sluts.

Ten years later, everyone says,

"LOVE YOUR BODY,"

and I can't stop checking myself out in every mirror I pass.

"Love your body," whispered like a prayer

& all I hear is,

"Your body is a temple.

Your body is a temple.

Your body is a FUCKING TEMPLE."

What a joke:

I never hated my body

until someone told me not to.

II.

"Your body is a temple."

My body is a wasteland.

My body is an empire, long-fought-over and oft-desecrated by a war I didn't start, fought with curling irons and tubes of lip gloss.

My body is a canvas upon which I have painted a thousand versions of myself - versions I'd hardly recognize now, versions I wish I could get back.

My body is evidence in the crime of my life that proves

definitively

I did not sit back.

I was not a passive observer.

My body is a vessel, which is to say

it is nothing / it is everything.

"Your body is a temple."

Don't tell me about my body.

I've seen my reflection.

It doesn't tell half the story.

III.

At work, Bobby the Regular always sits at the bar

and greets me with, "You look gorgeous."

He looks me dead in the eye with such grave importance,

like the revelation might save my life,

or like he's the first man to ever wanna fuck me.

I know he thinks he's doing me a favor,

but

I've never felt less confident

than when a strange man

tells me I'm beautiful.

IV.

The first time my daughter comes crying to me that she hates her body,

I will not tell her she is wrong.

Instead, I will look her in the eye and say,

"Your lungs fill up with air involuntarily

& your heart beats 80 times per minute

& when you fall off of your bike and skin your knee, you cry because it hurts

& your body is not a temple.

You don't have to worship at its altar."

I will tell her all the things I should have told myself.

I can't tell you how I feel but

I'd very much like to show you how.

Walk closer,

One step at a time.

Let's pace with our body rhythm.

Get closer.

Have your arms around me,

My tiny waist.

Have your forehead lean against mine

Hold your gaze,

Have your eyes look through mine

There, you may see

The universe that we feel

Embedded in our souls

Tremendously deep within

Now,

Press your lips against mine...

Show Me,

Don't tell me how you feel.

Do you remember when you were four years old,

When you didn't care about how your body looked.

When you didn't know how it should look.

You didn't care about what you ate or what you weighed.

You didn't even know what perfection was.

You were just purely you.

Who even told you what flaws were?

Who told you what was beautiful,

And what was not?

Who had the audacity to ruin your perfect self image.

And start a world of impossible standards.

Who created the demon inside of you?

The demon that has now taken over your life.

The one that made you care more about the number on the scale,

Or the blemish on your face,

Then your self worth.

The demon screaming inside of you,

Hammering in the message that you will never be loved,

Not unless you meet an impossible list of "perfection".

A list filled with thigh gaps, tiny waists, big eyes and perfect skin.

A list that will tear you apart.

The demon hollows out your insides,

Taking away any joy you had left in your body,

Until there is nothing.

Creating an abyss that will never be filled.

It makes it so all you can think about is everything you are not.

You'd rather starve than eat.

You would rather cut your arms,

Than look at yourself in a mirror.

The demon will not stop until you hate yourself.

Until you loathe your very existence,

And cry yourself to sleep.

It will keep on growing and growing,

until you fade away to nothingness.

You have to take away its power.

Look away from that magazine,

And step away from that scale.

Stop thinking about what your not,

And embrace who you are.

Stop caring about a space between your thighs,

Or a timepiece like figure.

And start caring about you.

Your body is your only home.

Stop treating it like its broken,

Or messy.

Stop trying to clean and fix your already perfect house.

The only one who can kill the demon

Is you.

My Darling,

I kneel beside you

Your last breath no longer 

Beading sweet moisture along my fingers

As I've weaved them into yours

To watch you pass into a light you were born of

Your chest will never rise with your lungs again

And your lips are silent once and for all 

I can feel the tick of your second hand 

Slowing with each beat of your heart 

I now know for certain that you will go first

I never imagined this moment

Me waiting for the end as you sleep  

I always saw this much differently

I wanted to leave first 

So that you could be given a place to grow

Without my weight

The freedom to move on to someone more 

Honest and deserving 

Of the pedestal you keep 

In place for the one you hold 

We have made a promise 

To find one another when we leave these bodies

One I knew I'd not be 

Allowed to keep

Beyond my own existence here

You swore to me that you would 

Wait on the other side

With pink roses 

In the place where you first 

Had me as your own

My love, you are going  

I cannot let you wander in vain  

I have given you all of my white 

And my shining

All of the afterglow and sweetness

Of a loyal soul, to you that I have been

But I have only shown you what I wanted you to see

And I have lied to you day after day 

So that you believed you walked this soil 

Hand in hand with purity by your side.

Where you are meant to be now

Will not allow the wickedness of a devil  

The heart behind this mask is black to all but you  

This love alone is not enough 

To take me to where you are made to go  

I have given to you with everything 

Decent inside me  

But darling

You are the only thing 

That has kept me good

Before you

I was a scavenger

Feeding and cursed to life  

After you

I will be so again

Do not wait for me, Love 

Eternity is a fee far too great 

A price you should never pay

For what I have to offer 

Move forward from the stench of me

A beauty like yours 

Cannot be left to linger

In wait 

For such a crooked 

Smile as mine

my mother taught me how to stand up for myself. she taught me how to give speeches to rooms of hundreds with shaking hands, I learned to throw my voice off any wall I stood near. 

she told me eye contact is the best way to speak to someone. you don't need a heartbreaking story when eyes can reach people deeper than words will ever be able to. 

she taught me how to present myself, how to show somebody that I have something to say. my words are just as important as any they'll ever read. 

she told me that if I speak clear enough, stare hard enough, if I throw my words at anyone who is willing to listen, 

I will find somewhere to stand. 

but when I was fourteen she told me not to use my words. she took back every lesson she had taught me about throwing my voice across rooms to reach anyone I could. 

After being told to present myself in a way that demanded attention, I was told to back down, "step back, don't say that." she told me I was using my words wrong. I had chosen the wrong cause to stand for. 

After years of learning the importance of eye contact. I was told to look away. "don't look at them, stop staring." she told me eye contact made me seem defensive. I used to give my words to anyone who would listen, tossing them around in desperation. 

Now I'm saving them, giving them to those who need them, throwing my words like lifeboats to the drowning. 

I found somewhere to speak, and here I am, still standing. 

you'll remember

everything but

my screams

and i'll remember

nothing but

my bruises