Heartbroken, still I love

I used to think heartbreak missed girls like me, the ones who waited, who stayed soft and sure. For years I prayed, “Lord, guard this fragile heart,” believing stillness meant I’d skip the fall. Then he arrived. The first to hold my hand, the first to kiss me like it meant something. He made me feel alive in quiet ways, like maybe love was something I could keep. I watched him more than I watched roads I drove. He smiled, said, “Please just focus on the lights.” He tied my shoes, he carried all my bags, he paid for every meal and never asked. I wore his silver chain across my gold, his jumper like a shield against the wind. I baked him brownies when words felt too big. I sent one postcard filled with prayer and ink. We made the shoreline sacred for a time, salt skin, sea wind, the sky pulled close to us. He felt like something God had shaped by hand, a story only heaven could have planned. I told him I was proud, again, again. My love came through in all the smallest things: warm food, soft hands, a voice note filled with grace, an open heart that never asked for much. But sometimes love, so full, can spill too fast. Sometimes deep hope gets tangled into need. I still don’t know if I came on too strong, if longing made me blind to letting go. He left. We don’t speak. I broke our silence, not for him, but for a scrap of relief. His name still echoes underneath my prayers. His memory still walks beside the waves. I thought I’d waited well enough to skip this hollow ache, this silence in my chest. But love, once real, leaves ruins in its place. And mine was real. No matter how it ends. Still, I believe God weeps with the broken. Still, I believe He sits with those who grieve. This heart may ache, but it is not ashamed, I loved him whole. And that will always count. Because I’m still the girl who loves too much, who gives without a tally, without fear. And though it hurt, I would not change a thing. To love like that is never wasted love.