Make You Love Yourself

by Peggy Audrey Jackson 

 

Say you were a sock, 

I’d turn your outsides in  

(cotton fresh to run and ruin 

the Earth, and the Earth to stain 

and soil you.) At the drooping of the

sun, you’d set into a bath, rinse

your ware, wear your rinse,

and rise, and rise,

and—

 

Say you were a dream,

I’d turn you inside out (night

folds crinkled, sense skewed; a 

fractured force suspended from a gold

chain tied to a lost balloon, found

in loose wonder.) force you to  

hold yourself, your midnights

turned to mornings, sunsets 

made to rise, and rise, 

and— 

 

Say you were a candlestick,

I’d turn your wick downside (your

body caressed by its own flame to flicker,

flash, even flail if it must, and it may, Love, 

don't be ashamed.) Let you smoke out your insides,

release your wild beauty, and listen, to the chaos under

your skin, till your walls radiate, your anxieties

morph into melody. Wax and wick, lumps 

and lips, hurt and heart, and—finally, 

you'd be happy to be

 

Home.

 

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