I don't owe you anything but my voice

And you don't owe me anything but your time

But please understand that if you are struggling in this life the trouble in your mind is no indication of weakness

The weakness is the way you were raised in a society that only ever pressured you to be the best relative to everybody else

And never the best relative to yourself

Self love is something you are born with

From your first taste of air to your first meal

You are programmed to care for your own needs

Self hate is something habitually patterned

The way we steal our own primitive happiness is due to our own thoughts

We are born with a clean slate

A fresh plane of grass

And as we begin to form our own sense of being in our minds neural pathways are fired and eventually they become ingrained

The grass becomes flattened in a simple trail

The same road you travel every time something goes wrong

Self hate can be reverse

You can plant new seeds to regrow the grass you've torn down

Those neural pathways can be reconstructed to take you through a field that reassures you of your strength and beauty

Because you are beautiful

You have so much more warmth in you than you thought you did

The cold you feel at night is only because you are a moon too far away from a star

It is okay to cry

It is okay to collapse

Because if there's anything I took from science class it is that this world was not created by a god, it was created by an explosion of the universe

And you carry the weight of a million stars

So collide collapse destroy the parts that do not serve you

You are a universe more beautiful than any

It is okay to start again

And when they tell you you cannot be loved until you learn to love yourself know this is not true

Maybe now isn't the right time

But just as a shooting star is rarely seen from the earth

The most beautiful things in this universe must be given their own time

For someone will love you for you

As cliche as it sounds

Your lovers stars will seep out into the empty space between your souls

So that you too can

See yourself

As a universe

Shinning brighter than any

All I ask is you give yourself time

Time to let the good come to you and let it radiate from your eyes onto others

Because many of us know how it feels to want to crawl out of our own skin

The most beautiful things in this universe must be given their own time

It is okay to say no

It is okay to care for yourself

It is okay to ask for help

It is no indication of weakness

only true strength

You are a universe more beautiful than any.