Refuse to Compromise Your Wild Soul

You, love, are so very beautiful.

I know you don’t think so.

I know you stand each morning, lift your face to the mirror and wage silent war on the skin and bones that hold you in this life.

I know you do because I do too.

But you are beautiful.

You are beautiful because of your unrelenting insistence on being utterly, uncompromisingly, completely you. Even when it hurts.

Even when it’s the hardest thing.

You are beautiful because you’re still here. Loving and laughing and bleeding and fighting and falling soft at the end of the day, into whatever space or place or body is your chosen refuge.

Your beauty is mixed with the wind and the way it tangles your hair and reddens your cheeks. It shines from the sun, and your delicate shoulders and the smattering of freckles across the bridge of your nose. It’s your happily ever after daydreams and way your inner badass takes over when she’s needed, even though you’re a good girl at heart.

Your beauty lies in the way you keep on being you. Regardless of how often you’ve been told to be something else. Regardless of messages given by culture or family or the ghosts of lovers past who have no damn right…