"Are you on ***?"
"I'm talking to you nicely and you come at me with rudeness"
This… is you
reacting to the version of me
that sets boundaries

I love you
I love the you that strives
Puts effort into your life
Puts time in the tedious and the small things

I love the you that picks yourself up
Tries to provide comfort when other don't
Provides warmth in this cold place

I love how you continue to try to improve
Reflecting and taking steps towards treating people better
Even when the favour is not returned

I love you
And I'll tell you
So that when it all feels like too much
You'll know there's someone who believes in you

The interesting thing about
gardens
is that they usually
have a beginning and an end
I am a garden
I need to set my white fences
put up signs
“Do not step on the grass”
label each flower with its name
water them every day
pull out the weeds
use poison so the insects
won’t hurt them
also breathe in their scent
feel the delicacy of the petals
and, no less important,
admire all the work done

My natural hair is
curly
but when I look in the mirror
I feel ugly
I grew up hearing my hair was
beautiful
so I shouldn’t do anything to it—and I
believed
that it was sacred
even if it made me unhappy today
Yes, my hair is sacred
but because I decide
when it will be straight
or when it will be curly

I think my favorite time of day
is dusk
It feels as if something important is happening
Yes, the death of a day seems
reasonable
In that moment
I turn off all the lights in the house
sit on the couch
put on some good music
pour myself a glass of wine
and consecrate that moment
A toast to me
I am alive

Understand this once and for all!
Within me, I am as many as I choose to be
Don’t get me wrong
I’m not sick
I’ve never been as sane as I am today
But the strength of a single woman is not enough for me
I need to be many
I need to be Athena
But I also need to be Persephone
At times I’ll be Hera
But most of the time, Aphrodite
And, strangely enough, I’ll be Hestia, Demeter, and Artemis
All at once, or in their rightful time
Because this is me—unique
Goddess of myself

I was scrolling through Pinterest
when I saw a drawing
of a girl with flowers sprouting from her head
watering herself
I felt the scars on my thigh—
the ones only I can see—begin to itch
So I decided
I would tattoo that drawing over
my war marks
so I’d never do something like that
to myself
again