Let Us Love Ourselves

A poem by Chinasa

Dear Friend,

The goal was to love ourselves

To find the spirit endlessly blooming behind our eyes and engage with every prayer

To look to the words beautiful and wonderful and know that those are the rocks in which we were formed from

To know that the answers we have searched for in people, and places our angels cannot enter, have been buried in our palms

like seeds

waiting for the rain within us

And like rainfall, our falling doesn’t birth failure but new life, new faith and new revelation

Let’s join hands with hope to wish ourselves well, and leap out into trust again

Because sometimes a breakup is just what we need to fly

As God broke the Sky away from the Sea, it was only then that it came into its own beauty. It was only then that it became the epitome of a dream, a banner of strength, the constant in every love story and the opening and closing act for the heavens.

So like the sky, let us let go of the weight that is holding us from rising even if it breaks us in half

Because we know what it is to lay between a broken heart and still feel the warmth of God.

We know that we are stronger than the need for closure. We are wealthier than squandered time. We are taller than bitterness. We are braver than disappointment. We have loved wholly and stubbornly, emptied our cups to make another cup run over, sold our tears to penniless hearts and traded our breath for a return in silence.

Have we not, seen the death of a promise in a lover’s gaze?

And are we not alive still?

Because what we really desire, the world we truly wish to experience, is too grand to fit in a single human being.

So let us love ourselves, perfectly

Not so that someone else can love us but just because, God loved us first and that love can light a legion of lamps that will always guide us home.

Chinasa