I want to write a love poem for the girls who have been branded with, “Borderline.”
I want to write a love poem for the girls who don’t feel loved.
I want to write a love poem for the girls who hurt so much that they call hospitals their home.
I want to write a love poem for the girls who are told they are “manipulative.”
I want to write a love poem for the girls who learned to spell “worthless” before their first name.
I want to write a love poem for the girls with “Borderline” who were never hugged.
I want to write a love poem for the girls who are unable to scrub this 10-letter word from their forehead no matter which scrub brush they use.
I want to write a love poem for the girls who are terminated for telling their therapist they love them.
I want to write a love poem for the girls who wear their hearts on both their sleeves.
I want to write a love poem for the girls who think there is something wrong with them for loving this hard.
I want to write a love poem, but what I want even more is to say that you don’t have to wear this label.
It is not an identity.
It is not who you are.
I want to write a love poem for the girls who, when they look in the bathroom mirror, only see a diagnostic code.
I want to write a love poem for these girls because just maybe, instead of branding them with this label, what they need is someone to love them.
Maybe I’m not a therapist.
Maybe I’m just a poet.
Maybe this is true.
I may not have the DSM memorized, but I’ve saved words on a two-sided cassette.
I play side one for painful comments from therapists and side two for ones from my past.
Maybe I’m not a therapist.
Maybe this is true.
I am a poet, though, and if nobody else is willing to, I will write the girls with “Borderline” a love poem.
I love you all.
May one day the world recognize this diagnosis for it is— developmental trauma.
****
Return to the Poetry Collection
