loving someone who doesn't love themselves

The saying goes that you can't. I disagree. I strongly disagree. Because who really, really, really loves all the parts of themselves. We're not talking your eyes and ears and lovehandles here, that comes later. We're talking about the parts they hate about themselves. The parts buried beneath a decade of smiles and five years of overcompensating manners. Those parts tangled in tree trunks in cities you have never seen. But your lover knows all too well. In a house with broken windows and a room with baby blue walls. Those walls know those parts of your lover. The parts you don't love. The half of their DNA buried under that tree trunk. Growing septic and parasitic roots. As if it were far away in another city. But they're not. Those parts you will never be able to love because they are so very ugly and raw and mangled. Those are the parts we don't love of ourselves, and don't expect you to love either. Or to mend. But please, while loving someone who doesn't love themselves. Dry their tears.
and when they say they hate the way their reflection stares back at them,

tell her she's beautiful.