BY JENNY JOSEPH

When I am a old woman I shall wear pirple with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.  
And I shall spend my pension on bandy and summer gloves and
satin sandals and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick the flowers in other people's gardens.
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat and eat three pouds of sausage at a go or only eat bread and a pickle for a week and hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.
But  now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We shall have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old and start to wear purple

it sounds like an old joke

i've lost over a thousand pouds
over the years

what, you say?

how can that be?

when a soul is born
to learn the biggest lesson
well, sometimes,
you have to go through some stuff

sometimes, you have to starve
to appreciate the end of famine

and so i am learning
to say goodbye
to those who can't
or won't
love me

maybe i will still be
a blessing to those folks
somehow

but right now
i've got to roll up my sleeves
and learn that biggest lesson.

I remember the first time I felt beatiful
It was 1:36 am in the morning and I was still trying to fall into that dark relapse we call sleep.
Tumblr led to to oodles of words saying "you are beautiful and we love you"
and it was all a lie.
I am fat, boisterous, *****, unloveable, spineless, tricky, rude, dumb, mean, weak and awful human being.
As my mother puts it best "You ****."
No matter how many times my man would hug me kiss and tell me I am beautiful i would always face the need to tell him to shut up
You could tell all 273 pouds of me to go eat a salad and I wouldn't.
rather I would sulk in those words and add them to my jar of hate for myself and such vile, searing syllables would string together in such colaliton that always included the words FAT and ****.
and trusting, foolish me would believe it.
yet I would still deny any and all complements bestowed upon me by those who claim to care and cherish me.
I would systematically shut down every kiss, smile, phrase, and action that would benefit my non existent self confidence.
I say sorry after every opinion I state.
Someone raised me to believe that my ugly words were a disgrace.
My unsightly thoughts that protruded form my mind that was encased in this fat, unhealthy body of mine were a disgrace and needed to apologized for.
Somewhere along the line I was guided to believe I was ugly, forign, and unwanted.
And everyone was told the same message yet they all still scream to the nights of the internet and the literature that they, that you, that I am pretty.
Yet there I would stand, with a knife at hand, waiting for the bravery to strive me to carve my flesh because I thought he didn't love all of me. because they didn't care for the total package I so desparatly tried to sell them.
The first time I felt beautiful wasn't because I finally realized I was always such.
It was because I saw it was okay to love myself without feeling bad.
At 1:36 am there's no one to apologize to.
And for being worth it-- I am not sorry.