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Dear Heart,

I would’ve staged an intervention but you wouldn’t have endured it. Like so many times before, I have resorted to putting my thoughts into words since, it seems, only through a romantic written letter will you be open to thoughts that are an honest patch of free association writing.

First, let me address something that you are, no doubt, peeved about. I know you are not the heart, that cardiac thumping ball of blood and striated muscle fiber. I know you are the figurative heart and are so insulted by being represented by the organ, a pagan symbol or any song “written” by prepubescent teenagers whose blood could be used to jumpstart a menopausal woman in the midst of a hot flash. But for simplicity’s sake combined with my impatience to find the correct scientific label for your complicated and debated existence, I am just going to call you Heart. At least I capitalized it.

You are the abstract entity that is blamed for the avoidable pain in my life; the force that makes me stash an old 3 of hearts playing card in my wallet, the overwhelming compulsion to ignore all harmful repercussions, and the sneaky bastard that allows smells to creep up and open my Pandora’s box of buried memories. The power that, sometimes, gives me some form of immediate satisfaction at the expense of my mental sanity.

You are what I give away selflessly. And I give you away repeatedly and completely hoping that, one day, you will tell me you are safe forever. That you will not come back to me and set my insides on fire. That you won’t be angry with me for abandoning you in the care of another who let you go. And I should learn – but I give away all of you all over again. I say sincerely to the recipient , “I give you my whole Heart” and it’s not a lie because that’s the whole we have left. I lost parts of you along the way. You trust me even after you return, missing a piece. I know this sounds like I should be apologizing to you but not quite. I am just acknowledging that I have not been good to you, either. This is why I do not blame you for your form of payback, for making me feel like I swallowed a supernova while the rest of me yearns to be sucked into a black hole. What I’m saying is, maybe I deserve it.

I think you will be unharmed because I cannot imagine strapping a relative of yours to a fender and dragging your bloody carcass through the town square. I assume that no one will do that to you. That no one can do that to you. Because I can’t do it to them. Somehow, I feel you won’t be a sacrifice. It always seems like a fair trade. You shouldn’t have to be retaped together and then placed in line with a lawn mower. I should protect you.