I want to love myself, but you can't love something that you've hated for so long. I can't just flip a switch and decide that I am good enough. I sit by myself overthinking and wondering if I still want to live. I've hated myself for so long that when my name rolled off his lips in the same sentence as beautiful, I cried laughing. Beautiful was a word to describe his eyes, or the sunsets and sunrises he watched, or all the things he ever did because it made him happy. He was my definition of beautiful. But as my name and that word were put in the same sentence I remember what I wanted to forget. I remembered all my imperfections and how much I hated myself for having them. I remembered the bullies that made me want to die. I remembered the notes left in my locker with instructions to **** myself, I remember the bleach bottle left in my car, the box cutter in my instrument case. I remember all of it. It wasn't beautiful. It wasn't pretty. It was gruesome. It was red and dark. But it was okay. Because as my name and the word beautiful left his lips, I didn't hate myself.