Poem
REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE WORTHY
How much longer will you stand outside your own life,
hat in hand,
waiting for someone to open the door?
Who taught you that love must be earned?
That your body must be perfect,
your work extraordinary,
your wounds invisible,
before you can take your rightful place
among the living?
Who told you this?
And why, after all these years,
are you still taking orders?
There is a terrible violence
in the way we abandon ourselves
to be acceptable to others.
The swallowed anger.
The unspoken desire.
The thousand small betrayals
committed in the name of being good.
And beneath it all,
the old, exhausted bargain:
If I can finally become enough,
maybe I'll be loved.
To hell with that bargain.
You were worthy when you were born,
red-faced and screaming,
demanding the world make room for you.
You were worthy when you failed.
When you lied.
When you broke someone's heart.
When your own heart broke
and you didn't know how to put it back together.
You were worthy in the darkest hour
of the worst thing you ever did.
And you are worthy now.
Not because you've healed.
Not because you have awakened.
Not because you've finally learned
to love yourself.
Because your worth was never in question.
The question is whether you will spend
the rest of your brief, astonishing life
trying to prove something
that was never in doubt.
Look at the trees.
Not one of them apologizes
for taking up space.
Look at the ocean.
It doesn't ask permission
to come ashore.
And look at yourself.
Still breathing.
Still wanting.
Still carrying that wild, unreasonable hunger
to be fully alive.
There is your invitation.
Stop kneeling before the tribunal
of your own imagined inadequacy.
Stand up.
Your life is waiting.
And it has been waiting
for you to remember
that you belong to it.☀️