deep are the wounds

i spent much of my life

hating myself because my

father spent much of his life

hating himself and, when i was

young he hated me, didn't spend

time with me, conveyed to me two

primary and strong messages

what the fuck is wrong with you?

i don't like who you are

those were the messages,

plus there was abandonment,

not spending time with me, and

so i learned, i concluded, that there

was something wrong with me, that

i wasn't lovable, that i was broken and

flawed, and that people didn't want

to be with me

this is what i learned

shame, abandonment,

rejection

i learned to hate

myself, and to abandon

myself, and to reject myself

it was so hard

to learn otherwise

it was so hard to learn

to allow myself

to be loved

it was so hard to learn

that i was lovable, and to learn

to trust people, and to allow myself

to be loved, to let people close to me,

to release the belief that people would

attack me, and reject me, and find fault

with me, and then leave me, it was so hard,

so hard, so hard to let love back into my life,

to choose love, to trust others, to know

that i was lovable, to allow myself

to be loved

i had to learn to quit being mean to myself

i had to learn to choose kindness

i had to learn to stop doing

what was done to me

it is so simple to say

so logical and clear and simple

what was needed to be done,

the course of action, but

it was so hard to

actually do it

deep are the wounds

that get ingrained

into the heart