you don't need to trace your hands
over the hairline fractures of their bones
to know their body was once betrayed.
you don't need to hold their wrist tighter
just to feel the pulse of a reassembled heart.
their past is not an imperfection,
and they are not in need of saving.
remain mindful that they are a person—
no more or less whole than any other—
and they are not condemned to a life
within the confines of their past.
so fall in love with their eyes,
their heart, their words—
their present.

–w.b.h. // a letter for broken lovers