I woke up next to my heart.

It was just there, lying next to me as if that was exactly where it should be.

I try to pick it up and put it back in my chest, but it slips out of my hands and rolls away in the direction it’s so used to going.

I shout at it, yell my frustration that it won’t come back. But it keeps rolling, flopping, and tumbling toward where it thought it was supposed to live.

“There’s nothing there for you! That’s not where you’re supposed to be! Can’t you see?”

I crawl after it, my head thrumming with images of what now occupies the shape I tried to fit.

Reaching, I grasp my heart tightly whilst it squirms in my hands. I hold it like I would a child—firmly, but with love.

“It’s okay,” I whisper through the tears blurring my future, “I know. I know.”

And as if I can hear it speak, it says to me, “But I thought that was it. I thought we’d found home. Where am I supposed to be if not there?”

Releasing my grip, I look at my heart, tired from fighting, covered in painful words and the bite marks of people I’ve never met. Still shining, still believing, unable to see the truth of what has been happening to it for so long, it breathes out a beat, long and hard.

“You’re meant to be right here,” I say, gently lifting it toward the hole in my chest.

“This is where you’ve always belonged.”

“Then why did you give me away?” it silently pleads.

“Because I didn’t think I was good enough to take care of you myself. I thought I didn’t deserve you.”

My heart relaxes, slows a little but rolls in my hands away from me.

“Please?” I ask.

It stops at last and I place it slowly back where it hasn’t been for so long. Then I whisper, “We’ll do this together okay?”

My heart gives a flutter as I feel it understand. It sends a silent tear coursing through my veins, and that tear says it knows everything I’ve felt, everything I’ve wanted.

That tear says “I’m glad you’re back.”

Author: Andy Charrington

Image: Comete El Coco/Unsplash

Editor: Nicole Cameron