it gets better.

i wrote this as something of a treatment/narration for a short video idea that was inspired by Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project.

it's set to Broken Social Scene's "Pitter Patter Goes My Heart" and is intended to play over a montage of various animated sequences as well as snippets of live-action shots.

Pitter patter goes my heart when I get too close now.

Closer than I've ever been.

Because this distance between me and her, you and me, is the smallest I've ever let it be.

It's been broken before.

Once, twice.

Probably more than I even know.

It was born broken, I supposed, because it loved the wrong things, the wrong people, too much.

So it couldn't love me.

But there was never really hate in it, as much as I used to think.

Just too much bad love that no one - not even me - could understand.

It was full of longing.

Longing to belong to someone else or to beat for the right kind of person.

To sustain the kind of love other people thought was right.

Told me was right.

I didn't want this heart to be my own.

I was ugly and weak, and my heart strained under the weight of two bodies: one that was mine and one that was for others.

And it was dying, because the things that could make it happy and full and whole were denied.

And I had to save myself somehow.

Close that gap between you and me, it and others.

To get rid of the strain and let it beat.

I told someone.

And she loved me in that way that sisters do, and every time she said, "There's nothing wrong with you," my heart became fuller and more open and strong.

There was nothing wrong with me.

I wasn't broken, it wasn't broken, and there was nothing wrong with me.

There is nothing wrong with you.

Because you are beautiful because you are you, and there is nothing more beautiful than that love you have to give and that wholeness and strength you have in your heart that's waiting to break through.

And the people it touches - friends, family, lovers - will love it, too, and there'll be so many people sharing that love with the world and with you.

It gets better because you are stronger.

Because you know better than to let the people who're determined to discourage you to hurt you, because you know to hold out for the ones who surprise and love you.

Because you have faith in yourself and you have faith in others and you know that without either of those things you'd be lost and incomplete.

Because love is love and love is right, no matter where it goes and who it's for, and you deserve all of its beauty.

You are beautiful.

The world is beautiful.

It gets better.