Dearest weary-hearted Savannah,
You were born with a heart much too big and hands much too small. Mind too loud and mouth too soft. Shoulders strong enough to help carry others, and knees too weak to stand up for yourself.
You are precious and this mustn't be forgot. You have navigated a world of knives, needles, claws and teeth, and managed to come out the better for it. In a place full of hurting and bitterness, you have trespassed in Fear's own backyard, marching to the pounding in your chest.
Your heart - as flawed and tattered and worn as it may be - strives for justice and courage and tenderness. Your heart is a marvel.
But your heart craves a love it may never see, and I need to warn you of this in case you develop the notion that love for you lies around ever corner, anticipating the moment of your collision with it.
Someone told you that for every pot there is a lid, but they were wrong.
Some pots don't need lids.
Some pots aren't pots at all.
Knowing you as well as I do, I have the belief that perhaps you may not be a pot, but perhaps a strainer, or a cookie sheet, or a ladle.
But not a pot.
I don't mean to dishearten you, though somewhere in me I know that this news will crumple your heart like a blotted page of paper in an artist's frustrated hands.
What's the point? you'll ask. What's the point of this heart that only knows how to pour, pour, pour out love?
Where is the reward?
What is the point?
And there is none.
And I'm sorry.
You never ask for much. You never have and I doubt you ever will. I'd say you have simple taste, but that wouldn't be the truth. In fact, you have dreams much too big for your bank account. You desire education you will never be able to afford. You eagerly await a miracle so you can live out the craving in your soul to create art on a professional platform.
(This is another thing you must let go of, but that is a story for another time.)
But that's not what I mean.
You've always been too embarrassed, too timid to ask for anything of significance to you. Your parents have struggled with money for so long that sometimes even asking for groceries on especially tough nights made you feel sick to your stomach with guilt. You've always been afraid of overwhelming them.
But you've always felt a cavernous craving in your chest for someone to love and love deeply with. It was a strange sensation at first and you didn't know what to make of it. You'd feel the tug, the ache, the growling within. You'd feel the lurching of your heart, the fingers of your soul reaching out.
Grasping. Groping the air.
Savannah, sweet little one, this feeling never goes away. On some nights it will have faded, but it will always flare back up, worse than before.
This loneliness, this longing, will become easier, though. A comfort, even.
A companion, even.
Soon, you'll feel the cool wind whistling through the gaping hole in your chest and you will revel in the satisfaction of it. Eventually, you will welcome the pain. It gets better.
No, not better. Easier.
The fact is, not all hearts are meant to be loved in the way you have longed for.
You'll never feel the touch of another body on your skin.
You'll never partake in breath-taking kisses or intimate breaths.
Instead, little one, you will turn your music up loud, lay back, cozy up to your pillows, and you will sleep alone.
Some prayers do not get answered, and perhaps for the better.
And that's ok.
You are valuable, even alone.
Love,
Yourself
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