The more broken you are in life,
the more you evolve to love someone
it’s the paradox of shattered hearts,
the way sharp edges smooth
through years of softening.

Each crack, a story
of how you learned to bend
without breaking,
of how you gathered pieces
of yourself from the dust,
and still held space
for someone else.

The pain was never a punishment,
but a teacher
teaching you to listen
to the silence between words,
to see the hidden fractures
in another's smile.

Love, after loss,
is not a giving, but a becoming
becoming open,
becoming wide,
like the sky after the storm,
like the earth after the fire.

And so you love,
not despite the brokenness,
but because of it
because you know what it is
to be held together
by the gentlest of hands,
by the tender grace
of those who have learned
that love isn’t perfection,
but the art of holding
what’s cracked and whole
in the same breath.

.    .    .