Punctuation

All Mine

They hate how I walk into the room with a smile on my face most mornings, 

like how could a person like you be happy?

They hate how my hair falls, 

as if they were the ones tangled in its body. 

They hate how I walk, 

one foot in front of the other, just as every one else. 

They hate my face's impurities, 

as if mountains and valleys and unique craters weren't beautiful things explored by many.

People seek out those abrasions in the earth's surface. 

They hate my voice and its volume,

as if the very words from my lips were unsettling howls into the defenseless night.

They hate my figure,

all of my skin, every organ, every vein and fiber of my being. 

They hate my hands and all of the works I create with them, 

They hate all of the things drowning me, 

every of my biting pains, the heartbreaks, the failures. 

As if they were five feet deeper than I, all because of the gravity they found in my baggage.

They hate my boobs.

My larger feet. 

They hate my clammy hands. 

They hate my anxiety. 

They hate my back fat. 

They hate my teeth.

They hate how my chin looks fatter in real life than it appears in approved photos of myself from my favorite angles. 

They hate me. 

All of this hate made me realize, these things were the things I hated most about myself. 

There might be people out there who hate them, too. 

But the voices of disapproval were mine. 

All mine. 

The loudest shrieks of hatred were mine. 

All mine. 

They hate my smile, so I wear it louder. 

They hate my hair, so I embrace its natural rat's nest body with endless products and tricks. 

They hate how I walk, so I walk in confident strides. 

As for my face and my voice and my volume, 

my very words, 

my figure and all of the threads that pull me together,

the baggage that weighs my journey down. My baggage laced around my hands. I would never expect anyone to help me carry that burden,

everything about me, down to the very last minuscule atom...

as for those things and the hundreds of millions of others that make me, me.

as for those things and all of the other things that they hate about me...

I have learned to cradle them, nurture them, appreciate them. 

There are and still always will be days when I listen to them...

eventually, you realize that 'they' is just another word for 'me'

and that 'me' should be spending less precious time degrading the littlest, 

most appreciated, 

sometimes never even noticed,

things about yourself. 

Sometimes them and they and me and we...sometimes we just have to love. 

Because these things listed above, 

they are mine. 

all stinkin' mine.