Aida Takyrbasheva
Self Love
Poems
Poetry for the long way home to yourself.
Self love is not a mood. It is a habit of not abandoning yourself.
Most writing about self love arrives as instruction: affirm this, believe that, be kinder. Poems work differently. They do not tell you to love yourself; they let you overhear someone treating a life — an ordinary, unfinished, still-becoming life — with tenderness, until the same tone becomes available to you.
These are reflections and self love poems on self-trust, self-worth and becoming, drawn from the same ground as Everything Is Fleeting.
I. Love Note to Self
Don’t twist your spirit to catch a stranger’s eye;
Your worth isn’t a billboard under a gray sky.
Stand still in your power. Let the frantic ones race.
There is a more dangerous beauty in a sincere face.
— “Love Note to Self,” from Everything Is Fleeting
II. Permission Slip
No one else was ever the issuing authority.
No teacher, lover, parent
no external sovereignty.
Just you. Just this. Just the dress. Just the door.
Just the life that’s been unlocked and waiting on the floor.
— “Permission Slip,” from Everything Is Fleeting
III. Becoming
I’m learning to live without disguise,
to see my worth through gentler eyes.
So here I stand, undone, aware,
no crown, no mask, no weight to compare.
Becoming isn’t some distant start,
it’s remembering softly
who you are.
— “Becoming,” from Everything Is Fleeting
IV. Bloom
No shrinking, no hiding, no essence made small,
This is the swell, the summit, the wave and the fall.
Survival is a pittance – your mission is to thrive.
Stir up the cauldron. Come fully alive.
Conduct your own rhythm. Take up the room.
— “Bloom,” from Everything Is Fleeting
V. Letter to Ai
Follow the spark that lives below the fear.
You’ll find a light in every dark you’ll need.
— “Letter to Ai,” from Everything Is Fleeting by Aida Takyrbasheva
VI. An Ode to Joy
Where did I bury my sovereign trust?
Is my crown made of iron or rubies and dust?
— “An Ode to Joy,” from Everything Is Fleeting by Aida Takyrbasheva
VII. Trousseau
They stitched it into each fiber, weaving a lexicon of worth
not needing the permission of the room, nor its applause,
— “Trousseau,” from Everything Is Fleeting by Aida Takyrbasheva
How to read poems about self love
Read one, not ten. Self love is built in small returns. A single poem, reread across a week, does more than a scroll of many.
Read aloud, in your own voice. Hearing kindness in your voice, addressed to you, is a different experience than reading it silently.
Keep the line that argues with you. The line you resist usually marks the place where self-trust is still under construction.
Let it be undramatic. Most self love looks like sleeping, eating, saying no, and going back to the work you actually care about.
Self love and impermanence
Everything is fleeting — including the version of yourself you are currently ashamed of. Self-trust is easier when you stop treating your present self as a permanent verdict and start treating it as weather: real, passing, worth dressing for.
Be gentle with what is still becoming.
The book
Everything Is Fleeting
A collection on love, grief, presence, impermanence and self-trust — part prayer, part love letter, part companion for the journey home to yourself.
Written by Aida Takyrbasheva, Kyrgyz-American poet and author. Also read poems for grief and letting go and Possibility Intelligence.