Self Loving, Self Loathing Poem by Nicole Barbour

It's easy to accept defeat yet hard to accept help. It's easy to hear someone tell you how well you're doing and far you've come, yet hard to tell yourself you've done a job well done.

Why is it that we as humans are able to give compassion to others in the bucket loads, yet harbour such resent for what's under our clothes?

We give and give to make the world a better place? Yet despise the looks upon our face?

Can't you see the pain we cause ourselves, right before our eyes.

We critique every aspect of our own lives?

If you were to write every negative thought about yourself and your life that makes you want to burn alive?

How many pages would you write?

How many times do you think you would be shocked? Or horrified.

writing and reading such awful lies?
Your looks? Your capabilities as a parent? Your job? Social skills?

You're skinning yourself alive.

If you were to do this for a month, carrying your notes on your back, or slung around your shoulder in a bag, how heavy would it get?

Would you get physical sores? Would it only be then that you acknowledge the abundance, the pain?

Surely as humans, mammals even, who need love and nourishment to grow, we have enough compassion and energy to give ourselves, we surely need it so.