I do love myself. | We sat there

By  Stéphanie  Ouimet

I do love myself.

I do love myself.

I do.

I didn’t use to.

I had fallen out of love and the pain of losing oneself is not to be born.

It never dies.

You scar all around it like a knot in your chest.

Like a knot in the heart of a trunk that the tree keeps growing around, lacing

it with bark and stifling it from getting any larger, a mass of darkness, a fist

nestled beneath its skin that doesn’t punch out, that doesn’t fight anymore.

It just aches when it beats softly, answering any shallow knock, any deep

strike on the bark, any new cut.

We sat there

We  sat  there,  completely  naked,  in  the  morning  light,  in  the  morning  rain,

telling  each  other  exactly  how  our  hearts  were  broken  before  and  exactly

where  our  bodies  were  broken  before,  gifting  each  other  with  whatever

pieces were left and knowing we would hold them together nonetheless.

Stéphanie  Ouimet's heart is split between Canada and Australia and her brain, between French and English. She works in the film industry, writes about relationships, body image and travel and became a poet quite accidentally. IG: @_hemispheres/ or @_hemispheres