I am a lover.
This is who I am at my core.
My love is wide, so wide.
I care deeply even for people I’ve never met in person, maybe never will.
My heart is open, gaping open.
You can walk right into it.
Anyone could, but here you are.
You could work your way from my heart to my head and I wouldn’t be able to quit caring about you.
Not ever.
You would be a part of me.
There are so many of y’all here now.
Too many to count.
And I don’t know how y’all keep getting in.
Because even though my heart is open,
Sometimes my arms are closed,
Sometimes my eyes are closed,
Sometimes my ears are closed.
Sometimes I want to tune you out a while,
Turn off the steady flow of pilgrims to my heartland.
Sometimes it feels like I’ve had enough of y’all.
I’ve loved enough of y’all for one lifetime.
I am a lover, but how can I love well when more and more of you keep coming?
I still mourn those I have loved and lost, you know?
Part of my heart, part of me died when they departed.
And my heart,
Oh it has been hurt by some I have let in,
Some I have loved.
That ache interferes with my loving–makes it hard for my heart to go on.
My heart isn’t what it once was.
But still my heart is open, so wide open.
And I want to let you in.
I have let you in.
Because I am a lover.
Jennifer Clark Tinker 