The Second Half of "Bittersweetness"

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This poem is about bittersweetness -- mostly the second half.
It’s about the embarrassing moments you learned to laugh at.
It’s about all the failure leading to self-improvement.
Sure, it’s about all the things that matter, but it’s also about all the things that didn’t, looking back.
And it’s about all the things that, when you look back, you no longer see.

This poem is about all the times you knew it wouldn’t last, and you were at peace with that.
It’s about all the great endings that blossomed into even greater beginnings.

This poem goes out to all the parents who gave everything for their children and did not call it “sacrifice”.
It goes out to all the battle-hardened friendships forged in the crucible of war, to the sweet tenderness of scar tissue and the memories that made them.
To all those who have loved, and lost, and are loving all the more.
Keep all those unblemished hearts; purity is for germaphobes and preachers, and I am neither one.

Give me all the hearts that ache, because how else will they learn to heal?
Give me the ache of my muscles on the mountaintop, because how else will I have earned the view?
Give me the breathlessness that comes after the marathon, because after I cross that finish line, I want to feel my lungs burning. Stoke that pulmonary fire, because I want to run faster, need to run faster, cuz --
There are all these things I left behind, and when I look back, I don't want to see them anymore.

Give me the darkness before the dawn.
Yes, by all means, give me the petrichor of earth after the storm, but please: do not deprive me of the storm, and
Give me a shovel while you’re at it, cuz I have some things I want to bury.

You see, they thought I wanted sunrays when I was craving moonbeams.
They thought I was cold and wet and miserable, but I was dancing in the rain.
And that shovel -- was not for digging graves.
It was for planting seeds.

You can’t grow a garden until you break the earth, and so --
I will keep breaking my heart until it is fertile ground, trade my platemail for plowshares, and if the well runs dry I will refresh it with my tears.
And don’t worry if I cry.

The harder we weep in winter, the sweeter we celebrate in spring.