YOU {poem}

YOU

 

You are not the punchline,

The joke,

The pimples on your face,

Your grades, good or bad,

Your past or your future,

You are not the model in the magazine,

The artist on the TV screen,

You are not the girl who couldn't sleep at night

because her stomach isn't flat enough or her skin isn't good enough,

You are not the boy with the V-line,

The six pack,

The hero or the geek,

The manly or the weak

You are a human,

You are a person made from kind words,

Actions, thoughts at 3 AM, tears you shed or held,

Stupid answers you gave when there weren't stupid answers,

You build yourself up,

You pick yourself up from the ground,

You define yourself, all of you;

The beauty,

The flaw.

And the mistake,

You are strong,

You are kind,

You are lovely,

You are beautiful

You define yourself,

Because you can,

Because that is the power you have,

Build yourself up and even if someone breaks you down,

Do it again, and again, and again, and again,

Until the scars from your wrists are battlescars,

Until the things they said are not even memories,

Until you are not skin and bones,

Until you are not a broken person,

Only YOU have the power to not be a brick in the wall,

But to be a fucking castle.