I love you
And you love me
Sounds like the perfect mix
But you do not
Love my skin tone
Or crippling anxiety
Or tears down my face
You love
My laughter
And smile
And attention
While I love every piece of you
You find problems I keep trying to resolve
And change
Just for you
Because
I love you
And you love me
Just not all of me

I've been making changes everyday
Since I decided I didn't like the way
I felt and thought
And I only realized today
Seeing myself in the mirror, that I'm different
I speak different now
I smile different now
I think different now
I'm different

It's like, I'm different
But exactly the same
It's hard to describe
It's just I have so much less pain
Before i was stressed and
Hurting
Always disconcerted
But now that's lifted,
I feel loved, light, gifted

This is for all the hopeless, that see no point in
Continuing on in their transient misery
Well, this is my testimony
And I hope you take it to heart
And treasure it as a keepsake,
It serving to remind you and convince you
That your ailing heart
Won't ail forever
Things change, life gets better.

I don't write for attention
Attention can be temporary
I write to express myself
Because it is momentary
I might not feel this again, think this again
It might seem to be the same thought or feeling but its different

Do you find it difficult to know?
To know what it is you're feeling
In a world that hides it all and calls it "protecting yourself"
How could it be easy?
To feel is not to fall
And to fall is not to fail
Another lesson learned

But what is life anyway if you can't express feeling
We would all be blank canvases
Completely blank, not even a dot
Express yourself, use some paint
Take that brush and start to paint

You might think but why write
And why paint
No one will read it
No one will see it
Do it for you
If you are afraid to share it with the world
Share it with yourself

Thank you, Sue,
For being the first
To answer my call for help,
For being the first
To want to understand me
Through and through
And see and hear my suffering
From my point of view.

Thanks
For unconditionally accepting
And even appreciating
The shameful parts of myself
I tried to hide away
For so long from the world,
Especially from
Myself.  

Thanks
For holding my hand
As together, we explored
My version of childhood,
My personal nightmare,
And changed it for the better.
For letting me see what happened
To everyone, not just to me,
From a new perspective,
A wiser, more caring one
Than I ever had before.

Thanks
For not trying to change me,
Although I begged you
With your magic wand
To make me become
Someone else, anyone
But the inferior person
That I was convinced
I was
From birth.

Thank you for letting me see myself
Though your loving,
Compassionate eyes,
For teaching me how to
Forgive those who I believed
Had hurt and wronged me,
Especially myself,
The hardest one of all
To forgive.

Thanks for showing me
That my painful self image
That made me suffer so,
Never is, nor ever was,
the same as me,
But rather, a self portrait
Badly painted,
A gross distortion
Of my true self.
Somehow, you showed me
That there was nothing
inherently wrong with me,
Although
I had spent a lifetime
Trying to discover
All my imperfections
And fix them,
To no avail.

Thanks for loving me
Without any strings attached, or
Hoops I had to jump through
To deserve your loving kindness,
And for showing me
With your sweet affection
And honest appreciation
That I was lovable
Through and through.

Finally, thanks Sue
For letting me love you,
And in my loving you,
To somehow
Turn that loving around
And begin to love myself
And others
Again.

We did not break down walls
But entire cities within me.

Thank you.