It’s not that we don’t know

How to respect others

It’s that we don’t know

How to love ourselves.

Our self-love

Takes the form of arrogance-

An insatiable need

To seem of greater dimensions.

We zoom out of intimacy

We stand distant and above others

Measuring their being…

Sizing them up

So that we may continue

To feed our sense of self-worth.

 

But what I fail to see

Is that ‘I’ am not my Self.

‘My’ self is not ‘me’.

It’s not an ever-evolving being

That must be asserted

To determine its existence.

It’s not a life that needs to grow

Through accomplishment and gain;

But is a flame that needs to be kindled

So that it can confront

Its own darkness.

Self-love is not easy

It takes courage to shine a light

To your formlessness

And to see clearly

All the creatures of your imagination

You thought were real.

 

Respect grows

Not in the glorious conception

You create of another

But in the removal

Of all misconceptions about yourself.