How dare you

How dare you stand there

And tell me that my life choices

Aren’t ok with you

That I just need to be quiet

And stop whining

Put down the words

That cut through your smoke and mirrors

To accept the way things are

This is the best it’s gonna get

How dare you

Sit behind that desk

And tell me

“I can help you through this”

“We can deal with this together”

“This doesn’t have to be you”

But this is me

I don’t need to deal with it

Or to be helped through this

I am enjoying the ride

Because I have been afraid

Afraid of the drop

For too long

And I’ve finally let myself reach the top

Ready to fall

How dare you

Tell me to wait

To try harder

Do you know how many hours I have wasted

On my knees

Begging a God who doesn’t care

For an answer different than the one he gave

In his books of “love”

Waiting for an answer that will never come

That book is your truth

I walked away from it

When I was told

That love can be a sin

How dare you

Tell me that loving her is sin

When holding her in my arms

Makes all the pain

Left by the fight

To find a God who will answer

Fade away

Leaving no marks

She makes me feel worth something

To someone

She is the only thing

That has made me feel something positive

In years

She is my everything

How dare you

Tell me that I am evil

For loving in a different way

When I have spent

My entire life

Picking up pieces of myself

From the ground

Where others like you left them broken

From your “love”

And moved on

Leaving me to superglue my soul

Back together

With confidence that I

Am running out of

How dare you

Judge the way I arrange

These 26 letters on a page

Because it’s too dark

It’s too vulnerable

It’s too real

It’s too much

I fight with my mind

Wrestle with my demons

For every single word I put down

And it leaves me

Too exhausted to care

What you think

I don’t need to be quiet

I don’t need to “work through this”

To believe

To fight my feelings

To be “righteous”

To censor myself

All for your comfort

I am enough

I dare you.

Tell me otherwise one more time.

Do you remember when you were four years old,

When you didn't care about how your body looked.

When you didn't know how it should look.

You didn't care about what you ate or what you weighed.

You didn't even know what perfection was.

You were just purely you.

Who even told you what flaws were?

Who told you what was beautiful,

And what was not?

Who had the audacity to ruin your perfect self image.

And start a world of impossible standards.

Who created the demon inside of you?

The demon that has now taken over your life.

The one that made you care more about the number on the scale,

Or the blemish on your face,

Then your self worth.

The demon screaming inside of you,

Hammering in the message that you will never be loved,

Not unless you meet an impossible list of "perfection".

A list filled with thigh gaps, tiny waists, big eyes and perfect skin.

A list that will tear you apart.

The demon hollows out your insides,

Taking away any joy you had left in your body,

Until there is nothing.

Creating an abyss that will never be filled.

It makes it so all you can think about is everything you are not.

You'd rather starve than eat.

You would rather cut your arms,

Than look at yourself in a mirror.

The demon will not stop until you hate yourself.

Until you loathe your very existence,

And cry yourself to sleep.

It will keep on growing and growing,

until you fade away to nothingness.

You have to take away its power.

Look away from that magazine,

And step away from that scale.

Stop thinking about what your not,

And embrace who you are.

Stop caring about a space between your thighs,

Or a timepiece like figure.

And start caring about you.

Your body is your only home.

Stop treating it like its broken,

Or messy.

Stop trying to clean and fix your already perfect house.

The only one who can kill the demon

Is you.