it breaks my heart.

Dear you,


She has been dying since the moment of her birth: exhaled from between your lips, and each day it gets harder and harder to breathe because she is starting to forget why she is alive.

She has a jar filled with the names of people who have called her beautiful, but somehow they have always ended up wrong, wrong, wrong. Her lips are toxic and her kisses leave scars and she is left wondering where she screwed up, where she damned herself to her loneliness.

She has been hiding her tears in pillowcases since she figured out that tears only ever meant anything in the movies and princes are a dying breed.

She has a habit of rearranging the placement of her insides, hoping that each time she does something will change besides just the blueprints of her heart and veins.

She has collections of things that don't mean a thing and will someday end up on the shelf in an antique store. She believes that maybe someone will find her memories trapped in those things and understand that she wasn't always as sad as everyone thought.

She has the biggest laugh and a bigger smile that lights up her whole world. Each time her eyes wrinkle with a grin, someone believes they can make her theirs. She has champions claiming to be on her side and people lining up just to take a fall into her depths while others still are desperately trying to stop being so stuck on her.

She has never been the right kind of disaster. People scream she doesn't exist, that she is nothing but hormones and chemical reactions pulsing through bloodstreams. Despite this, she always has the noblest of intentions.

She is whispered between the sheets, private and kept a secret. She is on the cheeks of the boy who is blushing while he hands flowers to the girl he wishes was his. She is written on ink in every letter ever sent to old friends. She is hidden in every "I miss you" and sleeping in the gaze of someone you used to know.

She is most at home between the hips of lovers and in the spaces between fingers before they are laced together. Airports and wedding halls are her favorite vacation spots, where she huddles in close between the bodies of hugging relatives.

She has more blood on her hands than she would like to admit. Jealousy follows her closely and Hatred is her neighbor. She is close friends with Sorrow, but her best companion is Joy.

She is called Love and Lust and Desire. She is named after pretty things and cursed for making others helpless. She lives somewhere between the first eye contact and the last goodbye.

You have beaten her, bruised her, cheated her, fucked her, and left her for dead. You have embraced her, healed her, nurtured her, craved her, and held on to her for dear life. She keeps coming back to you, time and time again, no matter the circumstances.

She is waiting patiently at your kitchen table with the note you received from that girl you wished you could forget about and she is pushing you down the stairs when you see that boy for the first time and you know.
She is tapping her foot, holding out the phone to you to make that phone call to the girl you wished you had the courage to ask out.
She is drowning in the tears that form in your eyes when you receive the news from the police officer about your dog.
She is standing in the voice of your mother each time she yells at you for missing curfew again and she is swimming in the eyes of your father as he tells you about how you have your mother's mouth.
She is stabbing you in the back each time you are betrayed by a longtime friend.
She is cradling your head as you sob into her skirts about the boy who cheated on you and took your heart with him.
She is in every song and beneath the skin of anyone who has ever experienced passion.
She is beautifully cruel and has no remorse. She will just as easily start a war as she will stop one.

She has left me and she has held me and she will keep on beating me up just to see what I am made of. She has been living in each and every cell inside me, from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. She is in my wrist bones and in my hip bones and she is never going to leave my soul.

I have Love dripping from my paintbrush and I have Love running through my hair and I have Love in the gap between my front teeth that I used to hate but now I only think gives me character.
I have come from a family that can range from beautiful to dysfunctional and I have seen Love appear in the unlikeliest of places, from bruised kneecaps to threats of divorce to the track marks only tears can leave behind to the hugs that come with "I'm sorry".
I have had Love hold my skin together and I have had Love slide down my throat on the back of a pill.
I have Love mailing me cards from Maryland and I have Love tweeting me from California. #wishyouwerehere
I have Love whispering to me "Good night" in Italian and I have Love staying up late to watch movies with me because I hate to be alone at night.
I have Love in the hands of a boy who has more freckles than I do and I have Love in the words of a boy who will never know me.

Someday Love and I will commit arson, and someday she'll get me fucked, and someday I'll make Love, and someday we'll have alcohol, and someday she'll give me the courage to grab a boy's face to kiss him like I mean it, and someday she'll help me get over that boy who is never coming back.

And once that's all done, maybe I'll finally be able to say "I Love you" like it's the truth.

Sincerely,
xx
Blue