‘Abusive’: A Poem

I am the abuser and the abused.

If this was a different sort of relationship

I would leave you.

I would let someone else count your calories and run your miles,

I would throw out your mirror and scale,

burn the numbers in your jeans 

and finally be able to see me as me.

I am the abuser and the abused.

If this was a different sort of relationship

I would leave you.

I would find someone who could hold me

without pinching the skin of my thighs

and playing with the rolls of my stomach 

and pointing out the dark bags under my eyes.

I am the abuser and the abused.

If this was a different sort of relationship

I would leave you.

Without you 

maybe I would feel Beautiful.

Without you

maybe I would be Beautiful.

I am the abuser and the abused.

If this was a different sort of relationship,

I would leave you.

I would find someone who smiles 

at my stretch marks, 

who loves my hair and my arms and my pimples and my teeth and my fingertips and my brain

and my eyes and my words and my feet and my calves and my hips and and and and 

I am the abuser and the abused.

If this was a different sort of relationship

I would leave you.

• poetry
• relationships
• self-love