Tag: Self-love

Black and White Dresses

~ Vanessa ~ 2 Comments

Most of my dresses
Of Black and white
Are Red all over,
From heart poured out.
The polkadotted one you picked specifically,
But your memory is of yellow.
A yellow dress
Of a girl way back
At the beginning;
The nostalgia of the moment we took off.
I tried to be her again,
But she’s gone;
Grown,
Into dresses fit for me now,
Dresses that feel my shape
That know my sway,
Monochrome or multishade.
I own them, in my way.
Black and white,
Read me now,
I’ve come so far,
Crashed, never burned,
360, watch me turn,
Watch me now,
Hold my own,
I spell me out
And what I deserve,
Clear as day,
In black and white.

Bad

~ Vanessa ~ 1 Comment

I can do bad
All by myself,
I heal once you’ve gone,
Hurt only in the knowledge
Of how I was played,
It was the audacity you had,
To take a good woman’s worth and affection,
And treat it as low as you could go,
I don’t need you in order to feel bad,
Damnit,
I am bad,
Badass,
Too good for what I’ve been picking,
And in my own due time, I’ll find
One,
Grown worthy of attention that is mine.

Brown and Lovely

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

Brown,
A color often not given much love,
It’s a color often only liked by association,
I wonder
What is it about the color of wood, earth and chocolate,
That we avoid,
Black is beautiful,
And brown a twist
A darkened orange
Often left out of the mix,
My aunt once marveled about my skin,
As “brown and lovely”
I rebuked
Knee jerked,
internalized oppression
Creeping in,
Not letting me see brown as Beauty,
On me

Fast forward,
Black Lives Mattered,
And layers of concealer were peeled back,
To see hate self inflicted on me,
And others like me,
With little deaths,
Until depleted self-esteem
Threatened and began feeding on worth,
A self-love kick flipped my switch,
Rewound, and unwound
The mental emotional noose I was putting on daily for being in a vessel,
Beautiful,
But with “eyes” made blind to see,
Gazing mahogany to caramel through a distorted gaze,
In snapping out of it,
In waking up
I’m confident in identifying shades of me;
I am brown
and lovely.

Deserving

~ Vanessa ~ Leave a comment

I deserve
More than I know yet,
I deserve
Because hell I’m worth it,
I deserve
Because I know who I am,
And loving her makes me realize
I can’t expect love, respect and affection from another,
If I can’t expect that from myself,
for myself,
And so I’ll confess it here:
“I love me”;
I am intelligent,
I am wise
I am beautiful,
I am kind,
I am good
I am awe-inspiring
I am all this and more,
And yes, I am god-damn deserving.