A Skewed Reflection

Maybe one day
I'll look in the mirror
without disgust.
I won't gaze
at the stretch marks
and wish them away.
It won't make me sick
to see my stomach
in the reflection.
Even if I were
just content,
that would be progress.
I forget
that this body
has been through pain,
and so has this mind.
There lie scars
mostly parallel
on my skin
from the war that waged on
inside my head.
Yet despite how far I've come,
I still look at myself
as ugly.
There is a permanent skew
of the way I perceive myself.
Mostly because
of the way people treated me
growing up.
I don't know
if I have ever felt
beautiful
as sad as it is
to say.