I am a dystopia whose fault line you are just waiting to fracture,

Splintering me into chaotic shards,

The world tells me on that sunshine tulip-coated poster:

“You must love yourself before anyone can love you”

But is that really how things are going to work?

Love myself for all my flaws and all my troubles, insecurities, fears,

Love that I’m not him nor her nor them,

Nobody will love a broken person.

If I am to love myself truly, I would reject you, poster,

I can be confident that someone like me

Can appreciate me even when I don’t,

Someone who doesn’t need me to conceal authenticity

For the sake of seeming whole. No.

Sure, I’m fine with myself most of the time,

I know I have weaknesses, struggles,

My thoughts board a train to nowhere,

But that doesn’t mean I am required to smother it

Before I am valid, valuable, worthy

Of another broken human’s affections.

Yours is a breed of motivation

That suffocates the real and replaces it with fiction.

Poster, I love when I love who I love why I love how I love

And it doesn’t matter, shouldn’t matter

Because I will always hold value

To someone who matters.