how to love a body after its betrayed you

How can I love a body

that has left me behind?

I resent the flesh

that clings to my bones

I want to set fires, watch it burn, claw it off,

how can i keep from screaming

when I have woken up wearing a stranger's skin?

I am disgusted by myself

An ever growing void, vile and unfamiliar

How can i forgive a body

After it has betrayed me?

I am angry at the memory

of a body that I expected to keep.

before my skin learned

the frame of your new little body

but forgot the contours of my own.

How do I find grace for the anatomy

That made you so real?

Your life, that has taken so much

in return for all it has given.

I know I should love this body

that brought you to me

But I cannot.

How do I stop cursing it for the changes

That are the only evidence that life ever lived inside of it?

Even as I carry you in my arms.

I rage at what is left of me

How can I reconcile my self loathing

with the tenderness I feel

when I see you, touch you, love you?

I have never known something so perfect before now

How can I oscillate between both rage and ecstacy?

I am learning

that to love this body

I must first allow myself

to hate it

to mourn who i was and get acquainted with who i've become

I can only hope that one day

I will find a way to forgive myself for who i am

Until then

I am learning

to survive despite the duality of life

the love for you

and the anger at what you have taken from me.

Do not be mistaken though,

For you I would do it 100 times over again.

For you I would have become anything you needed me to be.