Knowing my self worth - poem and art <3

I’m like a dirty little sponge that’s already muddied myself against the slippery, plastic flesh of expectation. My skin has become greyed, and dulled, torn from tight seams. The perfect vermillion of my insides is brighter than ever. It has been fed fat on validation. A dangerous thing to become reliant on. But recently, now darkened-deep and even more vivacious in its appearance, my blood has become even more fluid in its movements; now it sticks to my very bones. Blood is passion and bone is structure. My hair has grown into the soft textiles of my bed. Isolation has been good for me. It pools a cauldron of strength and stains my past with new potential. In being chained to my seat, I have shrunk inside myself and re-attached my formal identity to my inner-self. In a way, quarantine has been an act of protecting myself not from a virus, but from the chaos of the outside world. Following a premature return to the UK from my travels, my coping strategy was to suspend my life in a bubble and, although I remind myself not to get to used to the soft pillow of slow mornings and writing, for the first time in my life I feel in control. I am the queen of my castle, the puppet-master, the wicked witch of the West Country; my very blood bleeds empowerment. I’m in no way suggesting that the grinding halt of our economy has been in any way beneficial to so many of our global citizens, but it has provided us all with a pocket of time to self-reflect. For as long as I can remember, the capitalist model of our society has churned and chopped at my self-worth and imposed a lifestyle obsessed with productivity; this forced stripping back has caused a new skin to surface. Even if this pandemic ends tomorrow, this time has cauterised my self-worth and rooted myself to those who have made this revelation a reality.