Thanks, Jamie 🙂
Basically, this poem is the incarnation of my anxiety surrounding judgement. Long story short, I had a really, really hard time believing I was worth much (thanks to bullying and my own self-doubt) from about 6th to 11th grade. Not to say I hadn't experienced bullying before then, but it was at that time that it really started to get to me in more psychological ways.
I worried, every day, that everything of what I was was being judged by others negatively, and that if so many people were taunting me for the same things over and over again, that there must be some truth to it. I started retreating internally, suppressing who I was to avoid attention. I tried to fit into various cliques through a variety of methods, but none of it filled me as being true to myself did.
When I finally managed to pull myself out of all that, regained who I was and so forth, I was practically shouting my joy at the sky. The moment I realized it was okay to be me was the single most liberating moment of my life thus far. This poem I wrote last summer, after coming out as bisexual. The concept had been stewing 'round in my head for quite some time, it just took awhile for me to put it into words.
I think that everyone should be able to feel that way. We're all made the way we are for a reason, I feel, and there's no point to devaluing what is already beautiful for what it is.
