Photo credit: Alexander Krivitskiy
Self-Love: An Interpretation by a Masochist
By Sarah Shihabi
Reach deep into the soil of your insecurities
Fertilize it with doubt
Plant the seeds of love
Hide them away from the world
or don’t
Water them with tears
Beam rays of hope in the absence of sunlight
Your thoughts are children
Tuck them in tightly every night
Please, Make sure they remain warm
Jump into the abyss of an open wound
Kiss it shut
Climb back up
Grab ahold of your body
Hug it tight
Squeeze it hard
Be the love you never had
Let your hands run across the valleys of this body
Skim through its alleyways
Fall into its cracks and find your way out
Nestle your soul in the space between your rib cage and your heart
Fill it with gasoline
Be the match to light it up on fire
Let the smoke guide what remains of your breath
Sleep in the bed of your ashes
Walk out of these flames just in time
To listen to the strings of your heart whisper a melody
You’re a lonely song
Dance to your own rhythm
A lonely song is still a song
This one’s black and red
Let your mind sing along
You’re allowed to claw your heart out
Tear it apart at the seams
stitch it back together
Wear its strings like a noose and pull
Rip your poems off the pages
Shred them
And swallow the pieces
Carry them with you wherever you go
What’s a poet without their poetry anyway?
Allow yourself to start over years later
Darling, you can
Let this be proof
Feed on self-destruction
Then learn to rebuild
Go to war
Be the ally and the enemy
Your sanity’s fighting off an earthquake
Your mind will warn you
This is a foreign battleground
Don’t be cautious
Launch yourself straight into the rupture
Shoot yourself in the leg
Let it bite you
Take an adrenaline shot
Take two
Do it for fun
Look in the mirror
Speak to your body
And say
You’re broken
But I’ll love you anyway