I love you

I said it upon waking not a preaching from the self-help gurus but

written on my mind’s eye like lipstick across a bathroom mirror

a simple question ensued-

irrespective of how we’re ‘meant’ to feel and certainly unshackled from what other people may think-

what would happen if I loved and respected myself enough to endure

or to trust enduring

or to trust that enduring was a life worth living

worthy of my life

my son called it a need for radical self acceptance

it struck a note worth playing again and again and again

when the head lifts from the pillows and the last vestiges of the past held together by rotted strings

falls away it is so obvious I wonder how it’s taken so long

I can carry on with modest indifference the work is not beyond me

to imagine on another face the features of judgement

but I am inside my own eccentricities as they attempt to stand aside from their shadows it is a dance of discovery and uncovery we all learn to master in degrees

So I am here now untopping the tube twisting up the waxen fuchsia finger and smiling as I write this note to self

my best friend has always been

this me