Soft in the Middle

by Shelby Eileen

I had a dream that your eyes locked on mine and you leaned right into me and kissed me on the lips kissed me so slow and so sweet like honey moving between teeth

I resent how goddamn rare it is that I feel loved, honestly but then I remember how very moving it is that I honestly feel loved at all

I watch people change while I painstakingly stay the same

it really doesn’t matter if I lose a few pounds or 10 or 20 or 30 what is 30 pounds of ice off a glacier? when my mother says, “I think you’ve lost weight” I don’t let it feel like a compliment anymore because no matter what I lose I’ll never lose enough and if I lose enough I’ll have lost everything

I’m worthy of being a witness to beauty the stars shine for me too

no one will ever love me perhaps someone is capable but surely I’ll stop them before they ever get too close making my own misery is what I do best

does he respect you? does it feel nice when he puts his hands on you? these answers have to match

I don’t want a great many things from life so the things that I want that I can’t have break my heart the most

I keep inside me an inventory of things that I regret I’ve shared and who I’ve shared them with it’s not that they weren’t worthy it’s that I don’t know how to give myself up so easily

every minute of every day in every thought that I can’t stop thinking I feel the limitations on me questioning whether the way I’m living -and loving- is ok

the only requirement of loving me is that you do it gently and gently does not mean less than it simply means softly, knowingly, responsibly

I’m just trying to figure out how to remain soft in a world that only knows how to be hard

what I will tell every blazing sun of a girl around me for the rest of my life is that beauty is not pain beauty is simply there everywhere any place you are willing to let light shine

how I wish someone could know me and think: her freckles are my favourite thing about her her body is like a mountain range; messy, beautiful, enough to split the sky my hands in her hair could hold me for the rest of time she is a world I never want to stop learning I don’t know what it is to feel wanted only what it is to want

I hate feeling like I need to fling myself off of cliffs just to see if anyone will follow

WHOEVER made me think that love and sex were inevitable did more damage than whoever made me think that being fat would always stand in the way of being beautiful did more damage than whoever made me think that loving myself was selfish and unbecoming did more damage than whoever made me think that as a girl I could only have feelings for boys did more damage than whoever made me think that my gender was as simple as this. or that. did more damage than whoever made me think that it was more important for others to be happy with who I pretended to be rather than me being happy with who I really am

I wish I was more like the sky after rain; open and light there’s so much to learn from the sky- how to shine like the stars and how to hold happiness like the sun

I have all but become my words even the ones I don’t speak even the ones that aren’t true that’s what happens when you think too much and say too little words have created me and they let me create and isn’t it terrifying and beautiful how much power they have

it’s unfairly rare, and so goddamn difficult but sometimes I can stand to look at myself naked and think this is right this is the home I’ll never have to leave this is mine this body is a bloom, always shedding petals growing anew twining into foreign foliage retreating when conditions get too harsh I need to remind myself: I love you you beautiful thing your fragility has never compromised for the sharpness of your edges the possibility of you breaking has never diminished the beauty of all your pieces

to see someone you admire for their confidence break down in a flood of cold insecurity stabbing shards of doubt through their own heart should make you admire them even more they are human and they let you see them weak they are stronger for having let you help them rebuild this is how we should strive to be with each other to help sort and scrap and strengthen the pieces of us

sometimes it hurts so bad that all I can think is “holy shit”

heart a wretched place stomach a quivering mess all the things I keep on the inside run around, frantic there’s broken glass in all my limbs and burnt out lights behind my eyes how many young people feel older than nightmares?

the people you’re almost certain are too good for you to have deserved are the ones you have to fight the hardest to keep you need them if only to teach yourself that you deserve the very best

read the books on your shelf with your mind wide open

what about my body is virgin? untouched? my fingertips have created a language only the insides of my thighs respond to I am beautifully experienced without the help of anyone outside of myself

*asexual would the world know what to do with all the poems I could write about loving myself at night at 2 am with a hand on my breast and a hand having sex and a fever slicking it all with sweat would the world know what to do with an innocent* girl who loves her own moans so much so she may only ever gift them to herself

I want to wake up inhaling the air electric crisp and lively lovely side effects of living palm to palm with nature I want to share this life with someone whose dreams are crowded canvases waiting to step into the world and paint it lustrously new aiming to wash away the loudness, the loneliness I want to celebrate every precious little minute we are lucky to live on a planet of shimmering seas and goddess green in a galaxy layered in starlight in a space so vivid lush and endless I want to spend the mornings clutching notebooks and pens and each other’s hands loosening our limits until nothing large is impossible