We all have our scars from loving someone too deeply. From wanting to protect someone too much.

It goes like this: he holds you like a question mark and you never wonder why. Lanky limbs and cold coffee, but when he pressed you close, you forget to ask where he goes in the middle of the night. No promises, he says, and you think that’s sweet. Because maybe the world is cruel and some prettier girl broke his heart. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. Whispered, half way past the moon, an I love you followed only by breathing. And even though you know he’s awake, you learn how to pretend. It goes like this: he doesn’t come back one day. He grows out his hair and starts smoking on the patio of someone else who believes in mending broken pieces. Your mother says she told you so, and your friends pour tequila down your throat like some kind of consultation prize. They tell you he’s a fool, and you let them think you agree. And you tear, and you crash, and you crave, but you survive. At night, you whisper this into your pillow, and begin to remember that he smelled like secrets and women and somehow, you confused this with hope. It goes like this: he holds her like a lifeline and you begin to wonder why. But chicken legs and frigid waters, you always knew you weren’t enough. And when you forget how to pretend, curled like a child under the covers of a bed that is suddenly bigger than all the world, you’ll learn how to forgive yourself or maybe just how to hate yourself, but at least you’re beginning to understand yourself. Let me tell you  a story I wish I’d known. It goes like this: we break our own damn hearts.

do you remember the first time you were called annoying? how your breath stopped short in your chest the way the light drained from your eyes, though you knew your cheeks were ablaze the way your throat tightened as you tried to form an argument that got lost on your tongue. your eyes never left the floor that day. you were 13. you’re 20 now, and i still see the light fade from your eyes when you talk about your interests for “too long,” apologies littering every other sentence, words trailing off a cliff you haven’t jumped from in 7 years. i could listen to you forever, though i know speaking for more than 3 uninterrupted minutes makes you anxious. all i want you to know is that you deserve to be heard for 3 minutes for 10 minutes for 2 hours forever. there will be people who cannot handle your grace, your beauty, your wisdom, your heart; mostly because they can’t handle their own. but you will never be and have never been “too much.”

You deserve to be loved consistently, not conditionally; with someone’s whole heart, not just the remaining pieces of it.