Artwork by Alexandra Levasseur

Usually all of my hurt

begins from a place of “love.”

The ego kind of love.

Attached

clinging,

possessive love.

I want you to want me.

Some days my mind tells me the stories

of how you have forgotten me,

forgotten the way that I smile

and the way I play with the ends of my hair.

Thousands of miles between us

hurt so much

not because of the distance

but because of the fear.

I am afraid

of what my life would look like

without you.

As I sit on this beach,

witnessing the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean Sea,

I want so much to feel

a genuine love connection.

The conscious and unconditional kind of love

that knows no distance

or boundaries,

love that does not fear, cling,

or hurt.

But I still struggle to do this.

Every day.

So this tells me that I am not ready.

I am not ready to love you

to your face.

I am not ready to share a life with you,

side by side.

Not yet.

I won’t ask you to wait for me

even though my heart is split open

and screams for you.

I want to smother you with my pain

so that you can soften it,

and love me back to a place

that feels comfortable.

But my pain is mine

and only belongs to me.

So I feel it

and welcome it.

Just as this rocky shore welcomes each wave.

The waves that collide

and the way that softly rock,

creating smooth and pleasant surfaces

on these thousands of colorful stones.

I watch these waves

and try to find a way

to love myself back to my source,

back to a place where there is less trying,

less effort.

A place where I can make a soft

and loving space

for my pain.

Because you didn’t hurt me.

You didn’t hurt anyone.

Hurt comes from within.

But luckily,

so does love.

—

Written by Saskia Layden

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