i know that
most days
the cathedral of your body
with all its dips and curves
forgotten staircases
and ripped velvet covers
on the splintered pews
is hard to love

and there are days
where you wish that your
body would have manifested itself
as a palace
made of ivory and bone
with great empty halls
that would host nothing else
but your anguished cries
and empty stomach

but these things
are incapable of filling you up
because it is hard to sustain yourself
on bitterness and past scars alone

so i say to you
my friends
brothers and sisters
my lovers
and those living in the wastelands
of themselves

cast aside these
things for you are not a church
or a palace or a temple

no
you are something
much stronger and vast
grow yourself into a forest

turn all the sleepless nights
and breakdowns and hospital visits
and suicide attempts
and those traintracks of scars
into the great twisting trunks of trees

grow yourself as big and bold
as you need to be
protect yourself
wrap up all your sharp and soft
edges and corners
into the bark of mother nature

become a forest
because
through fire and drought and storm
and flood
the forest always comes back
even the charred remains of trees
stand strong

so
i say to you
with your dark circles
and long sleeves
and chest hidden behind a binder
with all your scars
and imperfections
be a forest
because
a forest is unstoppable
it always comes back
it always grows back

and so will you