***First DRAFT**
Dear Heart - I'm sorry you're so exhausted; that you've poured out so deeply only to be turned away at the door of all the places you've knocked on. All the letters you've mailed sent back to sender, damaged and beyond and reading when returned.
Dear Heart, I'm sorry. You've been a pack mule loaded with saddle bags of tears and fears and pain, with a few scattered flasks of water, only to be left on an outcropping with no way around the steep fall that is on every side of you.
Dear Love - I'm sorry I tried to experience you deeply in the heart of someone else, only to be left with stones in in my stomach in place of a meal and bricks that were used to shatter windows instead of generating an unbreakable foundation.
Dear Love, I'm sorry. I tried to learn every way to give you away to those who didn't even know they needed you only to be misunderstood and thrown away; wasted.
Dear Love, I'm sorry. I'm so fatigued and I'm not sure there's a place for you anymore in the great outpourings - that endless well flowing freely is now nearly dry and I have to apologize to my Heart for burning the well pump out long before it should have; it's gears ground smooth and useless.
Dear Heart - I'm sorry you had to listen to everyone else's pain while you were breaking; having to stay silent because weakness wasn't allowed. We do heal ourselves by healing others, but sometimes there are still gaping holes we alone cannot fix no matter how hard we try.
Dear Love - I'm sorry so many wrote off your depths because it's only the shipwrecks left behind that get admired once the storms are gone and the crystal clear waters are so still you can see everything that lies beneath the surface. Broken, destroyed legacies and structures given more respect and honor than the intact, properly working vessel.
Dear Love, Dear Heart - Please forgive me. Your worth is so much more than what you were paid for your efforts. But, sometimes the only one who knows the cost appreciates the true value of an item. I'm just sorry so few have ever agreed with the appraisal, which was still very often, too low.
©Kristen Garcia 04-2021
