To Hate Yourself is to Kill Yourself

To hate yourself is to kill yourself:
One step at a time.

To hate yourself is to take a picture
Of your side profile
And use the color of the backdrop
To carve out a prettier nose.

To hate yourself is to always wear your hair down
Because it hides your flaws—
Your acne,
Your shoulders,
Your neck.

To hate yourself is to cry when you put on makeup
And you look in the mirror
Thinking
“Not even the facepaint can fix me”

To hate yourself is start holding back your thoughts
To avoid being as loud as they say you are,
To draw less attention,
To hide from those hurtful looks

To hate yourself is to eat less,
And run more,
Until the days blur together,
And you can’t remember who you were.

But more than anything,
Hating yourself will eat you back.
It will start with your brain,
And finish with your soul.

And yet, you still think.
You continue to feel, love, and fear.
Because at the core of the hate,
There is your true person within
And the person within cannot be destroyed
Only hidden.
Under all
That
Hate.

To find yourself is to heal yourself:
One step at a time.