Myths, fables, and folklores could never tell a story about heartache better than the hopeful girls with big hearts and teary brown eyes.
You try to tell lies to the girl who was promised the world and more. She will take them as truth, then be dealt regret and torment.
Who no matter how fast she runs. Her fears. Her thoughts. The chaos. won’t stop chasing her.
She is not resilient. She is rickety. Worn down. Forgotten.
There.
Try telling that same girl with the big heart and teary brown eyes that she’s beautiful.
You would be mocking her.
Her body swells with cuts, gashes, wounds deeper then the Mariana.
Trench.
She has battle scares she can’t battle.
But she wears them on that scratch board she calls her body.
If she were truly ‘beautiful’ in soul, spirit, and in nature. Wouldn’t she get treated as such?
Wouldn’t she reap the ripest benefits? Wouldn’t she be a figure of some sort? Adored? Protected?
No one lusts after her.
Answer me this. Why does she hold her chest at sunrise praying that today will be different as a symphony of pain swarms her? Why does she pray for nights so she can be unseen. Tucked away. Talking to the moon.
Why can’t she trust that a single human being won’t misuse her. Lie to her. Deceive her. Guilt trip her.
Hurt her.
Tell her I wish her the best because you will never be the girl who’s chosen. But you are beautiful enough to seep into the background. faded. Smoothed into the blurred lines of 20x 20 canvas.
The girl with the big heart and teary brown eyes has a smile full of the sun’s rays. When she cries it’s ugly. Bothersome. Dramatic.
But if her smile is so abundant, why does no one protest at its dismissal?
She didn’t ask to be an empath?
She didn’t ask to be empathetic
She can’t calm her storms.
Her treacherous waves.
Her wild fires.
Her wild thoughts.
She doesn’t smile like the sun anymore. She has No fuel to. No strength to. No power to. No reason to.
She once trusted maliciously. But they exploited that too.
Sometimes, people made her believe they wanted her. ALL of her. But she wasn’t special enough to stay. So they fled. Because all cowards have wings.
...hers had been gone so long ago, so she waited for the next person to swoon over. To believe in. She waited for the next person to break her down. To give her a reason to protect herself.
But she’s tired. Don’t you see? She’s done everything to make her pain be known. But they ignored her, laughed at her, demeaned her.
A Pandora’s box with a big heart and teary brown eyes. Why do you even try? Who will ever love you? The capacity of the love you carry will replenish everyone but you. Your love is a selfish man’s gold. If you love them, you lose you.
Offer them love, I know you won’t stop.
Offer them love, until they drain all of you. Until your pride runs dry
Offer them
Your body.
Your words.
Your pride.
Everything you are.
So they can shatter you, until you are no longer the girl with a big heart and teary brown eyes.
By Maame Nsiah-Yeboah