I broke my heart once.
Not the poetic kind of break people romanticize. The real kind. The kind that cracks straight through the center and leaves sharp edges you keep cutting yourself on when you pretend you’re fine.
So I did what survival demanded. I threw that shit in a bag. No ceremony. No gentle goodbye. Just scooped up the fragments and carried on because bills still existed, people still needed me, and life does not pause for emotional devastation. Funny how the world keeps spinning while you’re internally in pieces.
Time passed. Not the magical, everything-gets-better time people talk about. The slow, annoying kind. The kind where healing sneaks up on you while you’re busy doing laundry, praying, laughing too loud, crying in the car, and learning how to breathe again without permission from anyone else.
One day I looked at that bag. Still there. Still heavy. Still mine.
And I realized something. I wasn’t broken anymore. I was healing. There’s a difference, even if nobody teaches you how to name it.
So I took the pieces out. One by one. Some still sharp. Some dulled by time. I didn’t try to make them perfect. I didn’t sand down every flaw or pretend the damage never happened. I put my heart back together exactly as it was earned. Fragile. A little rugged around the edges. Honest.
It won’t ever be broken again. Not because it’s invincible. But because I know how to protect it now. I know when to walk away. I know when love costs too much. I know my worth without needing it reflected back at me.
And at the top, where the cracks are still visible, I’m placing a running vine. Alive. Growing. Unapologetic. With a flower blooming right out of the fracture.
Not to hide the damage.
To honor it.
Because even in the middle of hard times, something beautiful can be created. Something living can grow where pain once sat. And anyone who looks closely will see it. A heart that survived. A heart that chose healing. A heart that learned how to bloom anyway.