I Hate... I Love...

I hate my weight,
But I love my curves.
I hate my smile,
But I love my teeth.
I hate my broad shoulders,
But I love the strength they give me.
I hate my chin and jaw,
But I love my lips and cheeks.
I hate the dark spots on my skin,
But I love my sun-brushed tan.
I hate my love handles,
But I love my cute butt.
I hate how thick my legs are,
But I love their raw power.
I hate my delicate, asthmatic lungs,
But I love my sometimes-wheezy laugh.
I hate being short,
But I love being adorable because of it.
I hate my feet,
But I love how they do their job.
I hate wearing makeup,
But I love how it makes me feel.
I hate my body hair,
But I love the relief when it's gone.
I hate how much fat I have,
But I love being huggable.
I hate my depression,
But I love how it allows me to understand and help others.

You don't have to love everything about yourself
In order to love yourself.
You are allowed to dislike parts of your appearance
Or parts of your personality,
But for every part you hate,
Find something else to love,
And then you can begin to appreciate
How beautiful you really are.

The Writer

The writer was always loneliest
When it was dark outside.
She sat in the night,
Alone,
Wreathed in silence and starlight.
The writer always felt different;
She always felt so alone,
So she took a pen to paper
And began to write a poem.
Soon, one became hundreds,
Line after line after line,
Trapping her sickness, her sorrow,
In pages of rhythm and rhyme.
She sealed it away,
Refusing to share,
Keeping Emotion on a leash--
A leash made of letters and words,
A leash she kept taut every day.
She shared her words with the world,
But few read them.
She shared her heart with the world,
But few noticed.
The writer held on to those words,
A lifeline to who she was,
But when she goes back and reads them,
She wonders if they were enough.
She's a lonely old soul, that writer,
Even though her body is young.
She seeks solitude in words,
But the writer always knew:
With all the many poems she wrote,
At least one was bound to reach you.