Oh Dark and beautiful Queen, I cannot convince you that you are worth more, more than the lashings of tongues which seek to scale your flesh, more than the pin prick of your own inner critic that slides that sharp metal point under your ribs til the membrane leaks out, as all ink fades on the page and you barely remember your marks, for every balm I seek to place there merely stings, searing truth into vacuous spaces, murmuring of the underneaths and the beneaths, those depths to which only we plummet, hurdling head first in solidarity in earnest seeking. I will hold up a mirror, lined and cracked with salt and age, but shining none the less, with all of your power.
See, I ask you.
See beyond what they have taught you, how you have caved into their designs, and made yourself a smaller shelter which is not your home.
Burn bright with the wyrdness that inks itself into your skin and cries forth a banshees lament.
For we stand here, for the hurting, for the broken, for the lost. You are not alone. And we shall not be afraid. - Joey Morris