Self-Image

When you've lived a life
of never being enough,
it's hard to grasp the concept
when someone says you're worthwhile.

After countless names
and reasons why
you amount to nothing,
it's impossible to believe
anything different.

You think they're lying
that you couldn't possibly
hold value
other than taking up space.
Because when you look
in the mirror
there is nothing
beautiful about what you see.
No matter how many times they say it,
in the back of your mind,
"ugly"
rings over and over again.

The past
may be behind you,
but it affects your present
all too much.
Those who have hurt you
still ricochet inside your head
until the thoughts become
too much to handle.
You tell yourself
that you are more
than what you were called,
but that's hard to convince yourself
when you believe their words.

You try your hardest
to repress what has happened to you,
but the more you do that
the easier it knocks you down.
You find yourself
reliving the horror,
and the next thing you know
everything's dark again.
They have won
again.
As they always do.

While you want to
agree
when someone tells you
that you're pretty,
it's difficult to
when you don't think you are
at all.
It upsets you
that they see you in such a light
and all you can see
are the flaws
people once mocked you for.

You want to love yourself
the way someone else can,
but self-love is a hard thing to grasp
and even harder to achieve.
The self deprecation isn't what you want,
but it remains constant
within your thoughts--
the echos of past individuals
whom broke you down
to this shell of a person
you are now.

Maybe one day
you will look at your reflection
and like what you see,
but today
is not that day.