First Sight

a/n: the road to loving oneself is not an easy one- at least for most of us. In this poem I wanted to try and capture the emotions present in my own ongoing, rocky journey to self-acceptance. I wanted to imagine what that destination would look like & the courage it would take to get there.

--

The other day I saw you for the first time, and it changed everything.

You pulled your stain from the silent wall behind me and said,

it’s time.

You are hard to look in the eyes, but I do it anyway, just for once god damn it

(and that’s when I feel it).

.

It’s not like I haven’t seen you before:

glimpses stolen in broken mirrors, your refracted

portrait staring up from the puddles on the thawing

earth in springtime.

.

I’ve heard you in song, sensed you

in the tired shine of dusk, the borrowed grin of the moon

(the inflections of my father but softer. the voice of my mother,

but darker.)

.

I have read you in tightly locked journals, found you in pictures and memories,

but these are all things that lie.

I have thought I knew you a thousand times before and each time you’ve proved me wrong.

.

I found you once or twice in books:

in the lines of a character’s face, in the description of their thoughts, their

outermost feelings and innermost wounds (it is easiest for me to feel for you when you are someone else).

.

I swear I meant to get to you someday.

I kept aiming to run my fingers along your

spine, to free you at last from the shelf.

When I have a moment.

When I find the time.

When I am no longer afraid.

.

That day never came, but maybe I got sick of waiting because

today I faced you anyway.

I stood and looked you in the eyes, and let it- all of it-

barrel into my chest.

.

I know you understand.

Our marriage, it is a house built on sand, foundations groaning,

shifting, settling. As weak as it is eternal,

as instant and unasked for as birth.

It is everything I’ve felt guilty for, everything I’ve ever wished

away. Every late-night binge, every impulse to hurt.

Everything else I won’t say here (but you already know.)

.

You are difficult to love, but we’ve always liked a challenge, you and I

(haven’t we?)