All my life...
There has never been a shortage
Of people to tear me down.

I have never been without
Someone to throw the words that cut,
And leave me bleeding
Without a nurse to tend the wounds
Or the means to heal them.

It wasn't often that I went without
Hearing something to remind me
Of how little I was worth.

I was told that I was no good at this,
And shouldn't pursue that.
That, "if I were you, I would skip the audition."
And that I wasn't allowed to do certain things,
Because,
"You're not good at it. Get over it."
Still a ******, I was called a *****,
And was only bought clothes bigger
Than what I needed,
Because someone would rather
Convince me to hate my body,
Than change their own.

I was told that if I didn't do
Certain things,
That no man would want me.
And that he would go look elsewhere.

Though I had hands laid on me,
And not in love,
It was the words that held the most
Power.

The words that followed me.
That haunted me.
That poked at me and taunted me,
Making it impossible to ignore them.
The words that eventually,
Despite my greatest efforts,
Began to ring true to me.

And the mission whose missiles
Were these very words
Became a success,
Making me feel unlovable to the
Highest extent,
Packing me with baggage
That no one should ever bear.

The pain was indescribable.
The recovery, impossible.
The hope that I might prove it all wrong,
Harder to keep alive than
A butterfly who had already had its wings
Ripped from its body.

I had never wanted so much
For a kind heart,
A brief, flickering light
To draw me in
And keep me warm...

To nurse the cuts that always bled,
No matter how I wrapped them.
To offer gentle words
And a gentle touch.
Things that I ached for
Like food and water.

I struggled to hold on to the hope
That there was someone
Who might tell me differently.
That I was no *****,
But beautiful
And deserving of love.
That I was no terror to behold,
Or bane to their existence,
But someone that made it a little
Brighter.
That I was no problem to be solved,
But a person, a being with value
To be held
And loved
And looked after.
Someone who held purpose
And whose heart deserved
Healing
And someone to hold it,
Someone to look after it.
Someone to hold and
Look after me.

I strained to hold onto the possibility
That I could make someone happy,
Instead of only inspire their hateful words.
That I might hold some merit to someone,
And be a welcome part of their lives.

But then I realized...

No one would want all of that.

No one looks to nurse wounds
And fade scars.
No one aims to prove false
The insults and jabs and discouragement
Thrown at you.
No one wants to wait patiently
For the trust to grow while the
pain subsides.
No one wants to bear the patience
Of dealing with a broken person
Who every now and then,
Cracks a little bit.
People want shiny, new, and undented.
Not something that has been shattered
And clumsily pieced back together,
Never looking quite as pretty or worthwhile
As the perfectly intact,
Looking like it might break all over again.

I worked to fix myself,
Always trying to make better
Something I couldn't even identify.

I worked to become perfect,
To gloss myself over
And fill in the cracks,
Hoping to look like that
Lovely, intact counterpart
That I would never be.

I felt as though I waited
For something to happen
That never could be,
And for someone to come along
That would never show.
Like a constant replay
Of a jilting at the altar,
I waited for something
I dreamt about so often
I had nearly convinced myself
It was real.

I realized I could never undo
What had been done.
I could never take back
What had been said.
Because these actions
And these words
Were not my own.
And making up for someone else's
Mistakes
Is about as successful as taking
Medicine
To cure someone else's illness.

I could never fix it,
But I must always
Bear the results.

I deemed myself,
Again,
Unlovable.

I began to wonder
If this had been the purpose
Of those words all along.

To create someone unlovable
Because the speaker could not
Find love themselves.

Surely,
Only a monster would do such a thing.

But monsters are real.

And this one wasn't hiding under my bed.