love poem for self

(this blog is for prayers and poems...this is both)

There are a thousand blond hairs on your arm,
sprawled out like hippies on the lawn,
lying on their sides watching for new freckles
to appear like history in the sun.

You shaved your arms once because
you didn’t like the furry halo
they formed around your chubby limbs,
like an announcement that you were not made
of gold clay like the other girls in the 7th grade.
They grew back with resentment,
or maybe that was just you.

There is a small bump on your wrist.
A souvenir of an accident that now, when it’s
quiet, I kiss because it reminds me of women,
a dainty hinge of forgiveness

I won’t tell you how beautiful your hands are.
We know how you hate them,
how you cursed their dimpled stubs,
but have you seen them move like language?
Have you seen them palm a phrase, hand it to
the air around a stage, or serve as a runway for
kiss blown to child’s face?
Hold them open.

Let me love them.
Let me love your full moon belly.
The thick trunk of growth rings
that recedes in and circles out, an
earth song swelling, you are marked
as a life giver.

So baby, stop describing yourself
with names only fit for cattle and feed lots.
You are a labyrinth of miracles, make your way
through the bends and angles to the auburn nest.
Part the hedge with your fingers. Plant names like
home and adore, gratitude and wonder
Watch them take root, pulse with nourishment,
burst into a pleasure wilderness
Can you believe your body can do this?
I want to draw the map for you
Plot the points of perfection.
Dig up anything that doesn’t think
your Being is a highway that leads to everything.
Take your stories out of their case and dissect them,
remind you of the whole scene.

Like the crooked eyebrow, the jagged eyelid
that you despise. When you were in a car accident,
they took on flying glass shards to protect your iris,.
Your hips, spread wide as wings, served as the opening
for the two reasons you wake up in the morning.
Remember how soft your hair felt
when you had it pulled back against your neck?
When you put your finger down your throat
like a coat hanger, unlocked
1000 calories of anger, heaved and trembled
till there was nothing left.
Can you believe that your stomach can hold that
much regret?

Baby,
quit trying to fold your self up
into a flattened perfume picture of
a girl, you are as 3D as the rumbling
city streets. Parks, gutters and laughter.
When everyone else goes away, when
the audience has faded, watch the way the
streetlights reflect on pavement, the way your
sounds clash and move like progress.
Let me love you like I know you.
Let me love you like it would end wars
if I loved you hard enough.
Let me love you like no one has ever been hurt.
Like you could heal the world if you knew
what you were worth.