I wake up next to my heart.

It’s 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 carries on 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 and 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 and whisper, “We’ll do this together okay?”

My heart gives a flutter as I feel it understands. 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: Eva Blue / Flickr
Editor: Leah Sugerman