"love yourself first" my foot

“to love another

you must first love yourself

fore if you do not love yourself

you can not truly love

anyone else”

what a bunch of crap

the list of things

that i hate about myself

it is far bigger than the things

that i like about myself

i hate my hands

with the chewed-down fingernails

and the chronic tremors from anxiety

and so many different cocktails of medication

that has grown too big to

swallow dry anymore

i hate my mental illness

the auditory and visual hallucinations

that used to plague me constantly

and the depression

the anxiety

the insomnia

the fuckin PTSD

i hate that i cut myself

for six years

and the urges still overwhelm

me more than is probably healthy

sometimes i hate that i failed

when trying to kill myself

four years ago

i am a freak in every

sense of the word

but that doesn’t bother me as much

as it used to

because all of my heroes are freaks too

and i still have so much love to give

because i grew up hating myself

raised between two abusive households

where it was made obvious that i

was not wanted by either parent

so i took that love that i was unable

to feel for myself and threw

it out into the world

for those that needed it more than me

i have so much love to give

because that is a terrible thing

to let go to waste

and i have more than enough

to go around

and i hate myself more days

than i love myself

but by giving that gift to others

before myself i think

and i know

that i am slowly learning how to

love myself again

and forgetting what it has felt like

to hate myself since i was

seven years old

so don’t you dare tell me

that i can’t love others until

i love myself

because that isn’t enough of

a reason to keep moving forward

and loving others first is how i

pick up the jagged edges

and smooth them down into something

that is soft once again