I once read a post that said something along the lines of “I do not trust people who tell me ‘I love you’ and yet do not love themselves.”
And that hurt my heart, it really did.
Who are you to invalidate my love?
Do you not know of the sleepless nights I have spent, laboring over my sins of the day? Knowing that sometimes I may never repent? With past regrets and paranoid overthinking, how do I rest?
Do you not know of how I avoid looking in mirrors throughout the day, or how I hate looking at myself in the shower? Don't you know how conflicted I feel when lying naked and vulnerable with my lover?
Do you not know what it feels like to apologize for who you are? Or to have all of your efforts and ethics invalidated and dismissed?
If you do not trust me then so be it, but do not reject the idea that I can love. I know what it means to have neither hope nor acceptance, I know what it means to regret my existence.
I know what it feels like at 4am with all the lights out with the absolute conviction that I am entirely worthless.
I know **** well what it feels like to be unloved. Does that not make my love *mean that much more?