This morning you woke again and carried the weight of your sadness into your day, and you wonder how you got here, to this place where you are so broken, so lost.

You no longer even know who this woman is, the one with the drawn face and colourless eyes. She is a stranger; a shell of emptiness and grief.

There is nothing left of you, only the parched skin that covers your withered bones. Somewhere within you a heart must still beat, but it is faint, thready, and you wonder how it even draws life when you have given so much of it away.

You never meant to lose so much of yourself. You thought maybe if you broke off pieces of your heart and placed them in the hands of others, they would see the gift you had given them. Maybe they would know how much it cost you to tear apart your flesh, and they would cherish this piece of you that rested in their hands. Maybe they would see you, know you.

Maybe they would love you.

Piece by piece, you ripped yourself apart. Piece by piece, you gave yourself away. Sometimes for a moment, sometimes for a night. Sometimes for a promise that fell from a hasty tongue onto the barren ground at your weary feet.

But never for the love you so craved.

But it didn’t matter. You were desperate to be seen, to be loved, so you continued to give your heart away, until now your breath is weak and your chest is empty and you can no longer feel the life force that once pulsed through your veins or the hope that once thrived in your soul.

You allowed the pieces of your heart to fall through the fingers of those who didn’t know how much it was worth.

Because no one ever told you how much you were worth.

But hearts as valuable as yours were never made for careless hands.

Beloved, come back to yourself.

Roam the earth, far and wide, and gather back the pieces you have lost. Bring them close, dust them off, and place them back inside your chest. Feel as you begin to mend. Watch the way your heart draws back together. Listen to its strength as it beats faster, the way it finds the song that has called your name since the moment you were born into existence.

Beloved, come back to yourself.

For your heart contains the mystery of the universe within its every breath. You are the ferocity of wild storms on a summer night, the whispered hush of the sun as it kisses the horizon. You are the thunder that rattles the windows of cities, the gentle harmonies that wash people clean with their tears. You are the fury of untamed oceans that lash against beaten shores, the softness of rain that lands silently upon fallen leaves. You are madness and chaos, passion and fire, stillness and calm; a beautiful contradiction that leaves the world breathless in your wake.

Beloved, come back to yourself.

No longer give your heart away to those who do not see the beauty that lies within their hands.

Love your own heart with every measure of the love it deserves, so you will never again settle for a love less than everything you have ever been worth.