love//hate: a slam poem

I love myself,
I love my body and what it brings,
My skin is covered in scars that have untold stories,
Stories in which, may not have been good.
But I love myself.
I learned to cope with my past,
I learned to scream my pain on pages of poetry that echoed down the halls of the empty house I call home.
Poetry that boomed in the hearts of others that also felt similar pain that I have.
I learned.
I learned that it is okay to be hated by people that don't necessarily like me.
I know I will never please everyone, and I'm okay with that.
I learned that is okay to let people love me,
To let them remind me that it is okay to feel upset,
That it is okay to feel weak and incompetent.
I learned to love myself, in order to move on.

But I have a love-hate for myself.

I hate myself,
I hate my body and what it brings.
I eat,
Then I gain weight,
I hate what I see,
So I starve myself.
I never dare to eat too much.
I never dare to gain more than 120 pounds.
I try to make myself less than that,
To where my ribs are showing and my hands are shaking.
To where my stomach is crying to be feed from a 3-day starvation spree that has in reality gone longer than 3 days.
I don't sleep as much,
Maybe because insomnia wraps me in its arms and whispers bitterness in my ears.
I lie awake at night counting the hours of how long it will take me to pass out.
I don't like crowds,
I don't like people mostly,
Especially talking to them,
Anxiety wraps its arms around me and tells me I'm being annoying.
Saying that no one cares what I say.
Saying that I should just be quiet because I'll just mess up.
Which during this time, I can't breathe and it feels as if my world is spinning.
All of this comes from the main source called depression.
That despicable thing that keeps drowning me.

a.b.