your absence has been revealing
the reach of your arms; exposed
my thoughts,
feelings and actions
forever altered from our encounter

I have learned from our departure
you were not the flaw
I was flawed before we met
and now understand that you were my voice
but I haven't spoken since

So many years
Feeling bad about myself
Berating my being
For being
Fundamentally flawed
Fragmented
Irreparable

I wish someone had noticed
Me
Pulling the hair off of my head
Me
Flailing about
Like a trout
Out of water
Me
Stepping on
All of the rakes
Unintentionally
But also
Sometimes
Fully aware
Of where
They were lurking in the grass

And I wish they’d said
To me
Stop
Stop
Stop.
Breathe.
Look around.
You’re ok.
You’re ok.
You’re beautiful
And young
And you couldn’t possibly know
How quickly time runs away.
So stop.
Stop saying
What’s wrong with me?!
You can stop
Because I’m here
To tell you.

What is wrong
With you
Is
That life
Fooled you
Into thinking
That there’s something wrong
With you.

I don’t understand these days,
the poetry I speak,

Or value my inner author
enough to strive for literary peaks,

And yet, here I am
writing about my writing still-

Words won and lost
with the drop of my quill,

A ballpoint pen
to be more exact,

But who in my journal
is in need of such facts?

While I cry to myself in the mirror, she'll be admiring every creak in my bones.

Because no one else can

Be yourself
Because there’s nothing else you can be

Be yourself
And love every moment of it

Just because you're lonely
Don't let people use you

these are the days of doom
u seldom leave ur room
u live in perpetual gloom

yet also the days of hope
how to cope?
u pray and u *****

toward self illumination ...
becoming an angel
(pure love)

and yet You must love Your Self

In my experience many poets, especially younger poets, are loving, caring human beings who struggle with feelings of low self esteem and low self worth. Some of them engage in self harm, such as cutting. But they would never be so negatively judgmental of others, or do others deliberate harm. This poem is for them, in the hope they will come to value themselves as much as they do their loved ones and friends.

Keywords/Tags: Angel, Angels, Human Angel, self, self discovery, self help, self worth, low self esteem, self harm, depression, hopeless, hopelessness, agoraphobia, doom, gloom, cloud, dark cloud, hope, recovery, cope, coping, illumination, enlightenment, ascension, love, pure love, true love, self love, angelic, heaven, heavenly

We cannot become successful and produce true joy by having confidence in ourselves. How can we?

Does a captain drop anchor on the deck of his ship?

Is a house built upon its own structural foundation?

Does a tree hold fast with roots that grow above the earth?

Everyone and everything depends upon something deeper and more profound than itself for stability. It would be paradoxical and against our nature to assume otherwise. I know that I could never live up to my own expectations. No, I do not put confidence in myself, my confidence is in a Man who did live up to every expectation for me and yet died a death that I should have died.