This is for the girls with hearts made of glass and bloody fingers from picking up the broken shards.
This is for the girls with hearts like flowers, dying and growing back in an unending cycle.
This is for the girls with hearts encased in chains and no key to unlock them.
This is for the girls with hearts so hidden they might as well be the tin man.
This is for the girls with hearts like a fall down the stairs, covered in bruises.
This is for the girls with hearts deprived of love like a torture victim deprived of sleep.
For the hearts broken like a bone, the hearts shattered like a mirror and the hearts drowned like a rat.
You are going to be okay.
You are broken, yes, but broken doesn’t mean lost forever.
You are broken, but you are whole, all the parts are still there they just need to be put back together.
You do not need a boy to fix you, to save you, to complete you.
You do not need him, and during the weeks that doesn’t ring true, shake your fist at the gods who were too jealous of our completeness and split every soul in two, separating us from who we are meant to be with.
During the nights you feel too alone to sleep, get up and call a friend because alone doesn’t need to mean lonely.
During the days you want nothing more than to go home and cry, do anything but that.
Remember that “I love you” is easy to say but hard to mean and when you feel like your drowning because you don’t know who means it or not, call your mom.
Call your mom even when you’re not drowning. Tell her everything and let her stay when she surprises you a day later.
Remember what you thought love was when you were a little girl, because that little girl had so much hope.
And remember
Glass can be melted and remade into something beautiful.
Flowers grow back no matter how cold the winter.
Chains can be broken even without a key.
The tin man always had a heart.
Bruises heal.
Sleep is easy after days without it.
And being broken doesn’t equate to being worthless.
Rachel Waring is a sophomore at Christopher Newport University. She is studying for her Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Studies and a minor in Philosophy and Religious Studies.
Rebecca is 20 years old and lives in a little village in Germany. She started taking photos six years ago when her dad got a camera for his birthday. It was fascinating for her to see what different things he was able to capture — emotions, plants, animals — and she wanted to try it herself. The best part of photography for her is that she can express her feelings and tell stories through it, and she hopes that people feel something when they look at them. See more of her work on Flickr.