I love the places you hold your doubt. The places that are dark because you have forgotten to grow their light. I love the space within your chest, the place you hold your breath when you feel like giving up, the lump that chokes your throat when you talk about your feelings.

And yet I live for the places you harvest your hope. The areas within your cells where happiness thrives, the inspiration that causes your laughter to meet your eyes.

I love the places in your body that hold the hearts you once held. The notches along your ribcage that hang their names like worn out spells. I love how they chime within your mind from time to time, how they taught you about the hands you had to find. Mine.

I adore the areas in your body that are scarred, that are tired. I see the hurt you hold within every inch of your fire, in each and every bone that has broken under the pressure of being enough and loving enough. I adore the strength you hold within those breaks, the brick and mortar of your mistakes, the fight within your wounds.

See, I simply love every piece of you. Every place that houses hope, every dungeon that grows doubt. I love your extremes, your faults, your flaws – the spaces inside your body you have always kept hidden for fear of turning someone away. It is every place within your body that makes me want to stay.

Read more of Bianca Sparacino’s writing in her new book Seeds Planted in Concrete here.