To all the boys I've loved before

Part 1
We are not your mothers
You have been weaned from the breast of a woman for years
Yet you come to us wounded and half filled 
with promises you can only keep half the time 
Trying to suck a lost sense of self dry
We have become much too accustomed to sleepless nights and damp pillows
Have become much too accustomed to waiting for our empty beds 
to be weighed down with the bodies of men, 
heavy with the scent and the hands of other women 
and we simply wanting to be loved and to love ourselves unconditionally
Simply wanting the truth of whether you can really love us or not.
Play Hester Prynne
Place scarlet letters on our chest
Become adulteresses, cheating ourselves out of what we truly deserve
Willing to settle for less
Willing to act like a little less then a goddess
Willing to sleep with the enemy
Men too scared to stop acting like boys, thinking we can love away their scars
So we take the lashes of their insecurities they pour on us
And lick our wounds in quiet mourning for the little girls that we lose by the minute.

Part 2
You said you had a photographic memory.
But apparently you forgot that honesty begins by being real with yourself 
and the ones you claim you love
The truth cannot be hidden
What’s clouded in darkness will always come to light my love.
You should have known that, claiming you saw my light so clearly and brightly
I guess shit happens.... I just wish it wasn’t me
And I guess it’s so much better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
I know that’s some easy shit to say but I’m still gonna try to live by it
I’m still gonna try to put my faith to rest in it
I will sleep on dry pillows now in a bed big enough to love myself in.
I will awake these coming mornings with my eyes dry and shiny, full of the knowledge
I am priceless and worth nothing but honesty
I will remove this scarlet letter from my chest
And take the hand of the little girl I used to be and say I’m sorry to her
I’m sorry for cheating you out of the joy you have always deserved
And I will wait for a man to come along 
that can give me the truth of how much he can really love me.
Mayda Del Valle