The Ache to Be Seen

Akram Huseyn Unsplash

If I ache to be seen

for my brilliance and beauty

I can be sure

they are lying just outside of me

where I look upon them

through the imagined eyes of others

and objectify them

---

I can be sure

if they’re lying just outside of me

my confidence will fluctuate

as I keep falling for the paradigm

of considering

how significant, or not, they might be

how commodifiable, or not, they might be

---

I can be sure

if they’re lying just outside of me

I may hold them, but I don’t inhabit them

and as much as they’re mine

I haven’t utterly owned them

---

I can be sure it’s vital

not to confuse an inward season of reclamation 

for some biz coach bullshit that would call it hiding

and not to bypass the power of private purification 

by falling for the trap of believing

not showing up = insignificance

---

I can be sure if I don’t bully myself to ‘show up’

that I will belong to myself

and my power doesn’t slip from me

---

I can be sure 

in the aching to be deeply, intimately seen

-that there’s a gaping hole in my being

where reverence from others has nowhere to land

so I will only keep meeting

a hungry void

---

I can be sure 

it is upon me

to become the animation of my brilliance and beauty,

not to be a role model for my child

not to make my partner proud

not to be admired by people on the internet

But to do it FOR ME

---

I can be sure if I’m neglecting

the re-inhabiting of what is god-given to me

my life force will evaporate

and I will stagnate

---

I can be sure

if I envelop them with unconditional embrace

and bring them home where they belong

inhabiting the very essence that I am,

that I won’t die aching.

---

I can be sure that the steadiness with which I’m rooted in them

is the source of my confidence

and my radiance

---

My brilliance and beauty

are not measurable, not vulnerable to comparison or lack

when they are intact within me

and only then can I adore them in others

---

I can be sure that there’s intelligence

in the aching to be seen

that while I seek to be reassured, recognised, validated, authorised

-it tells me there’s no substitute

for what it is that belongs to me

that aches

only for ME to see.