For when I’ve been the heartbroken…

I accept your rejection. It is a blow to my ego I can more than withstand. I accept your rejection, and I wrap the wounds with gauze stitched from years of learning self-love. I accept your unwillingness, your inability, your reluctance because sometimes things just don’t “work.” This is one of the most frustrating yet incredible miracles of the human heart. (Because when it does work, it’s magic.) 

I accept your closed heart, because I know what it’s like to not be able receive what I cannot give. I accept your lust, your desire, your drive to consume me but not keep me, not SEE me. The hunger that leads you to this bed will never be satiated by flesh alone. It is deeper, wilder and more transcendent than that.

I accept you will find the love that fits you just right in another’s heart. I accept that this is no reflection of my own ability to love or be loved. I accept that I will also find the love I’m building within reflected back at me in someone else. My Person. A miracle. A human, flawed and free, probably somewhere right now laughing deeply, grinning wildly, running their hands through their hair, completely unaware of the wonder that awaits them. I accept this, even though I had wanted that Person to be you—I accept that it is not. 

For when I’ve been the heartbreaker…

I accept that you are angry, and there is no amount of poetic words I could string together to salve this hurt. I accept that you have loved me—do love me—and I have you, but I cannot stay. I accept that you may say things or do things that are reflections of your pain, and I will take responsibility for the part I’ve played in it. But I must hold this boundary, and you must let me go. I accept that I have no control over how you react or how you heal, I can only let you know I support you (and I know, even that stings).

I accept there is no simple, non-messy way to leave someone and also stay to ease the wounding. I accept I must put a distance in a sacred place where I once only wanted closeness. I accept the strange intimacy that comes with sitting in silence with you, after the tears and before I go.

I accept our friendship may never recover. I accept that time heals all wounds, but does not always deem healthy that we stay in each other’s presence. I accept that life is cyclical, and this cycle may close for this lifetime. I accept that I was happy. This was good. I was in love. I also accept that I am not anymore. But I will be again, and so will you.

This is the grieving, the unbecoming, the healing and the loving into something new. A threshold I cannot cross until I accept, all of it, in it’s heavy and holy totality.

I accept.

I accept.

I accept.

Thank you.