I Have Never Been an Easy Thing to Love

I have never been an easy thing to love.
There are pieces of me that are restless,
pieces that are ugly,
pieces I keep tucked beneath my ribs
so no one has to see how badly I have learned to bleed.

I have been too loud, too distant,
too honest at the wrong hour,
too broken in places
where people preferred perfection.

Perhaps I am unhinged.
Perhaps I am distasteful.
Perhaps I was never meant to leave a good impression behind me.

But I have always known how to love.
Give me one ounce of kindness and I will remember it for years.
Give me a hand when I am falling
and I will spend my life trying to remember how to hold yours.
My loyalty has always been the kind that forgets to leave
even after the door has been opened.

I do not fear tomorrow anymore.
Today has already taken its share.
I have sat through enough sunsets to know that darkness is not the end,
only proof that the light was here at all.

So let tomorrow come with whatever teeth it carries.
I have survived every morning that once looked impossible from the night before.

And I have no hatred left in me.
Not for the hands that hurt me.
Not for the mouths that misunderstood me.
Not for the hearts that chose to leave.
Not even for the girl I used to be, who made mistakes
with the little wisdom she had.

I will not build a home inside my anger.

Let the world misunderstand me.
Let it call me foolish for loving too much,
reckless for forgiving,
strange for still finding beauty in things that have broken me.
I would rather be strange
and still have a heart
than become cold
just to prove I was hurt.

I was never perfect.
I was never easy.
I was never everyone’s kind of person.

But I loved what was kind to me.
I forgave what I could.
I carried what I had to.
And when I finally walked away,
I tried not to leave hatred where my footsteps had been.