There are things even a photograph cannot capture.

The moments preceding.

The moments after.

Both the backstory and destination left to be told with a snippet of time. 

 

In this portrait, 

you are a mosaic,

vivid, intricate, and stunning,

and no one can tell that you’re mended and mending still.

You gave your heart to the incapable,

the tangible,

believing they would love you just the same. 

You danced with affirmation,

used things to patch up places you didn’t want to see,

put yourself at the mercy of someone who would never be able to make you

whole.

 

Whole.

That’s all you wanted.

To feel loved,

be loved,

deeply.

So, you placed your uniquely-shaped,

beautifully-crafted,

specially-designed heart in

vacant, ordinary spaces, and told yourself that it fit.

You settled.

For possessiveness.

For hurt.

For lies wound in promises and an embrace.

For arguments and shattered boundaries.

That is not love.

That will never be love.

 

But if you must wonder,

if you must search…

I promise to listen and hear—

few know the difference.

To pour into you with positivity but also to

reach out with the real.

To respect every “no” and every border.

I’ll speak life when your circumstances surround you with death,

and encourage you to keep going, to keep burning, to keep

living.

Because I love you,

I’ll remind you that your past is permanent but it not an identity,

that you’re a worth more than you can ever comprehend.

 

To love you is to be patient and kind.

It is to neither envy nor boast.

It is a promise to not be proud, or dishonoring to others, or self-seeking, or easily angered.

A vow to not hold onto all the wrongs found in the past,

To not delight in evil but rejoice in the truth.

 

To love you is a choice

To protect and trust and hope and preserve because that

Kind of love is a love that never fails, even when we do,

Even when it feels like I can do anything but.

 

Yet, this story will only work if these pages are

double-sided.

No, I will never force you to fill this book with inked

mistakes and victories.

Instead, I ask you to

be the love you so desperately seek to find in someone else.

When the camera is unseen

And the walkway of this destination needs a new trail of breadcrumbs,

I ask you to try.