Tender Heart

For so long there was a thick shell around my heart.

It grew some and I built it some and the layers got thick.

Heartache after heartache, I boarded up shop and let go of my heart.

I didn't need it, didn't want it, didn't care for the feeling it gave me.

I was sick of pain, sick of hurt, sick of being torn apart artery by artery.

For a long time, the heart in my chest was a stone.

It was heavy.

It was empty.

I didn't care about the cost because the pain had stopped.

Now, that shell is cracking and my heart has become exposed.

Every soft word, every kind sentiment, every hurting heart stabs into my chest like a knife.

It hurts all the time.

A wound being reopened and exposing the soft, new flesh to the harsh reality of the world.

It hurts for everyone going through something big or small.

While I'm glad to feel alive again, I don't know how to cope with the pain.

I've lived so long like a ghost, unseeing, unfeeling, unattached.

This tenderness is new to me.

I try not to see it as weakness, I try to remember that pain makes me strong.

I try not to shut down again, to coat the walls of my heart in cement or block out the world.

But living is hard.

Living hurts.

The ache in my chest is both foreign and familiar, from a time in my life I wish I couldn't remember.

Tender, aching, breaking heart, hold on.

Hold on.

Hold on.