the art of mending a heart

I wrote in the corner of a random notebook years ago:

I feel like one of those tiny, fragile, white shells that washed up on the beach, and somebody stepped on it to get to the pretty shells they wanted to collect.

In another place, I wrote:

Thought I had everything,
but it all turned to dust.
I hid it in a box,
but the flood of my tears
turned it to mud.
Now on the soles of my shoes I carry
pieces of my heart.

The recurring theme is loss, loneliness, and deprivation of love. I had dozens of notebooks that tried to capture the art of heartbreak. Not that it would heal anything, but I thought it would redeem it if it were pretty.

My teen years were my most fruitful years for writing. Too bad it was all wasted on a melancholy I cannot return to anymore.

I still feel like that same dust. Years of neglect (most of it my own) ground me into fine powder that collects on the floor in the corners of the room.

Only now, I come to embrace that form. I like to imagine myself being carried by a gentle breeze, grazing every corner, passing every threshold, having no limits. The dust of stars; invention never stops.

It took tremendous courage to get through that night. To get to the light. The warmth of the sun became a memory I couldn’t quite recall, but I made sure to make it to the day I would feel it again. This time, the memory won’t fade. It will be refreshed with every waking morning, all into a beautiful life ahead.

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i want to believe in it.