One
Some people aren’t committed to knowing your heart, they aren’t committed to knowing the layers and the channels and currents. The prisms and all the light and colors that break within you. They don’t understand the grief that was sent to you at a young age. They don’t know the underneath of the willow tree you used as a sweet summer escape and reading nook as a youth. How you insisted on reading hardcover original Nancy Drew books or would try to save worms in flash floods.
They don’t understand how you seek cozy corners and listen to Fleetwood Mac because growing up you had no refuge from the fighting . They don’t know how you sit parked in your car until the rest of your favorite Gerry Rafferty song plays or how many times you cried in that same car overlooking your favorite coastal slice in Stony Creek. How you always wanted to be kissed in a rainstorm or how you wander bookstores looking for novels to stir lost feelings of romance and adventures like autumn leaves in a windstorm. You look for pages to breathe creativity and encouragement in you.
Not everyone understands your heart. They aren’t meant to. They aren’t meant to know how your eyes crinkle with your joy and your hips swivel the moment you hear Prince’s Purple Rain album on vinyl. How you love vintage perfume bottles and cameo rings and antique trinkets because it reminds you of your grandmother who left Earth for Heaven when you were so young.
Your heart just wants a safe home to keep it protected like the purple forever rose encased in glass you kept from a friend even after a couple quarrels and now it’s one of the only things you have left of them. Not everyone is meant to understand you and your heart. But if you’re open to hearing others, to learning their stories and all the colors and storms and stained glass inside them, in learning their own distinct language of their life then you can rest your head at night knowing you’re doing the best you can. To be gentle and soft and bold with both your heart and other hearts.
We only have one, let it beat with grace.
