With Time, and Strength, and Love

It all began with self-loathing.

With cutting yourself in the bath
at fifteen
and leaving shit everywhere.

The poor hygiene
that marked you out as gross,
as sickening and wrong.

You couldn’t love yourself because
you weren’t iconic.

Of course you weren’t straight,
but you weren’t even queer,
not slim and sweet-smelling,
a dish to make the muses leer,
a calamite or slut,
since who would care to slut with you?

Malformed and useless, without art.

It’s taken you your youth to learn
that you can only make yourself,
that once the bad sculptors, your parents, die
or fall away, your left with rubble that can be
as many things as art allows,
with time, and strength, and love.