i am
a very stubborn person
a very strongheaded person
an i-put-my-mind-to-a-task-and-i-do-it person
a person who sets a goal and sticks to it
a person who does things

when i was sixteen years old, without a flexible muscle in my body
i decided i wanted to be flexible
so i stretched every morning
and was, after just a few months
able to do all splits
and waterfall into a back-bend
and i did this with very little knowledge
(which would bite me in the ass later,
but that’s not the point of this poem)
i wanted to be something
so i set my mind
and i did it.

i have other examples
of stubbornness
of setting my mind
but that is the one i call upon first
because it is such a clearcut example
of how i can accomplish
anything
i put my mind to

so why can’t i ever set my mind to loving myself
to forgiving myself
to cutting myself a little bit of slack
to giving myself a little bit of a mental break over things that
i probably had very little control over in the first place?

is it because i don’t actually want to love/forgive/let myself off the hook?

i’d say
probably

(but then that brings up a whole new question
which is
why?

why do i think i don’t deserve love?
why do i think i’m reprehensible if i dare to cut myself the tiniest bit of slack?
why does my feeling of worthiness come directly from how worthless i can
make myself feel?

this doesn’t seem healthy or accurate or growth-inducing

so why do i still do it?)

(i don’t have any answers right now)