Platonic love and self-love are two forms of love that I find highly important. The love I receive from my friends and family is like no other. The love that I try to have for myself, well, it's something I'm always working on. But, it's something I greatly value. It's a form of love I don't want to be without. This poem is about my relationship with myself, I guess you can say. I want to be enough for myself. I want to be whole for myself. However, with the constant representation of the romantic love that we see in our everyday lives-- it's hard not to crave it. It's hard to feel that the love we have for ourselves is enough.

She Is Enough

I look into the mirror and look for that girl.

The girl who keeps me whole.

She appears instantly and our tired eyes connect.

Smiles stretch out like a worn rubber band over our skin.

We have made it through another day.

A day filled with seeking each other out in small reflective surfaces.

Time spent longing for that quick glimpse to remind each other that we exist.

That we are whole.

We are whole, we say it to each other like a mantra.

But in the moments where I can’t find that girl,

I am faced with a fence of interlocking fingers.

Whispered “I love you”s fill the air and I begin to choke.

They end up sounding like oceans crashing violently in my ears.

I see these looks of fondness, but they aren’t for me.

They aren’t from that girl.

I try to break from the interlocked fingers, but they do not budge.

The whispers grow unbearably louder.

I am met with a book of endless pages.

Endless pages that tell me of “LOVE”.

"LOVE", a foreign word on the tip of my tongue.

It tastes like iron, sharp and metallic.

Oh wait, it tastes like blood.

My desperation to find that girl heightens.

I know love, she knows that.

I know love. Platonic.

I know love. Self given.

But this love? It’s a stranger.

Yet I know it so well.

I crave it, but I don’t let her know it.

I do not let the blood spew from my lips.

With bruised arms I break free from committed fingers,

And I see her in a shard of reflective glass.

She is enough.

But, I can’t bring myself to swallow the blood.