You:
I think I'm carrying my first heartbreak,
though it doesn't wear the shape of heartbreak.
It is not the loss of love,
but the loss of believing I ever held it.
I was starving,
so when hunger dressed itself in attention,
I named it love.
Mother:
Oh, my girl.
Hunger will trick your eyes,
make scraps look like feasts.
I've set that table myself.
Don't hate yourself for wanting.
Wanting is human.
You:
Now I sit with the knowledge
it was never love.
How odd to bury a ghost
and still cry at the funeral.
Mother:
Then let it have its funeral.
You are not foolish for crying.
Hope can dress itself as love,
and you wore it until it unraveled.
Now eat something warm.
Grief is easier to carry on a full stomach.
You:
And yet, even in this loss,
my hand keeps writing.
The best words fall out of me,
beautiful and jagged,
like glass that once was a bottle.
I used to joke
may a man break my heart
so I can write like this.
The joke has turned on me.
Mother:
Yes. Hurt sharpens whatever you hold.
But don't build your home inside the wound.
I lived there too long myself.
Pain can teach,
but it should not raise you.
You:
So tell me, mother,
is it better to have loved and lost,
or never to have loved at all?
Mother:
Better to risk the heart
than to keep it folded in a drawer.
Better to burn your hand on the stove
than to go hungry out of caution.
The ache will pass.
What you learned will hold, like stitches in a hem.
I raised you to endure, but do not endure so much that you harden.