Victoria Lee

“Love Thyself like” @underscoretor 🕺 @aragorn.jdc 🧑‍🍳 me 📍 @movet.movingarts Equipment @ppi_studio People say your understanding of love changes Beyond anything you can ever imagine the moment you have children. I have never loved a man more than my mother loved me and I was once sure that my best shit was breakup poetry I used to think that’s how my crew came to know me I leaned on it so hard you would think it was Codeine Used to be so focused on the powerful forces that broke me I let go of what made me whole. See I was told that love was supposed to be unconditional There is nothing you wouldn’t sacrifice, even sanctity of life Like I’d take a bullet for you, I love you so much I could die But when I was sixteen recovering from suicide There was only her that made me cling to life To promise to try, for her sake, not mine. That’s when I learned Love can be begrudging sometimes. Like I deserved to hurt to preserve her heart Cuz I was not my own from the very start For one, from her body I was painfully carved And to this day she still bears the Caesarean scar So I kept it pushing even though it was hard Through the endless blister packets and the marks on my arm Battling depression was like fighting the dark Truth be told I didn’t ever think I’d make it this far Look, if I do it it by the book, I’m already skipping steps Love one another like yourself but myself I forget It’s a reluctant sort of tolerance instead I guess I dress myself and keep myself fed but again and again my heart beats in my chest, I resent the rhythm unrelenting, unending, offending entropy I’m convinced that loving me isn’t meant for me I’m the exception to the rule and it bends for me All of this empathy I have is exempt from me Take the best of me, ripped from my chest you see I’ll love you so much there’s nothing left for me Because, when a boy tells me he loves me the first thing I ask is “why”? And when I ask my mom the same thing She says cuz you are mine. I wake up in the morning and put a substance in my body that I hope my daughter never touches (cont.)