...

I wanted to tell you that I love you. I know the way you're going to look at me, and laugh it off. You will roll your eyes and say, "Riiight" in that sarcastic tone because you won't believe me. I love you, and I am not going to stop telling you this until you believe me. When you were a little girl, you thought that you were special, and somewhere between packing boxes, moving houses and growing up, you forgot. Maybe you accidentally put it in a box that your mother took to Value Village the night before the first night in the new house.

I love you even though you don't feel smart or pretty. I have a secret. You are smart even if your professors don't always see it. You are pretty in the ways that count. In and outside of the body. I know you are looking at your body right now. You are counting up its blemishes, its imperfections. You are thinking about that scar on your hand, and your short nails. The curves that you don't admire, and the gap between your teeth.You never really got over the fact that when they were making us, they had to put us into bodies. Souls can't just be formless, they have to have skin, and be touched.

I love you even though you are scared of love. Someone loving you would mean that you weren't a bad person. It would mean that you were nice and unique. Creative and thoughtful. Sometimes you realize that you are these things, but you don't believe it. I love you. I am not going to take that back.

I know sometimes you get lonely, which drives you to destruction. Remember when you looked in that mirror and you had an argument with yourself about going to bathroom. It's only behind those locked doors that you feel safe. Safe enough to hate yourself as much as you want. I love you in spite of that. I love you even though you don't see it right now.