A Brass Heart

A Brass Heart

  I reach for a pendant that hangs from my mirror. A pendant of her, a permanent photo of perfection gently placed in a small brass heart. I take it from the mirror and I open it, I carefully pinch the sides and the heart splits.

 It opens to the vivid smile of what is gone. Today is the anniversary of her death, another day of grief. This heart, this photo is all I have left. As I look to it, I suppress the urge of tears. For I know she would wish me to keep going.

 To grieve in the action of moving on. Of finding new memories to be created with someone else. But how does one move on from someone so close?

 How does someone find another to take the place of someone you held so dear? Someone that could never be fully replaced. How do you not feel guilty as time ticks on and you hold the hand of a new love?

 You know that is what they wanted, but how do you not let such thoughts sabotage the new things that come your way?

 How do you keep a heart from sinking to the void of loneliness and memories. The nostalgic glow of her smile still sits at the front of my mind. Her smell still clings to the sheets of our bed and her laugh still echoes in my heart.

 I can feel her skin against mine. I can feel the warmth of her press against my arm. I can see her beside me, wrapped around my arm as she smiles up at me. I can feel her hands upon my jaw, sliding against my five o'clock shadow.

 Her lips still stain mine and her heart still rests upon my palms. How does one find peace, from a love that was taken? Where does one start?

 I am fevered in loss and broken in love. This brass heart is all I have and will it be all that I shall ever have?

 I place the pendant in my pocket. I look into the mirror and begin to talk as if she is here. I exchange words in my head as if we are in the same room. Her voice carries so softly through the empty silence.

 As I talk with sorrow falling from my tongue like honey. I can fight my tears no more, I know she wants me to move on. To be the rigid stone she stood upon for support in her times of hell. But at this moment, this is all I know.

 All I feel, the vacant halls of my heart. The hollow silence of the room. These tears, are all I have in this moment. For none I know, know my pain and I am alone in this I think. These tears, as they fall, I begin to feel something.

 I feel as if I am being lifted from my feet and into my heart. I feel, as if the darkness that has capped me in lonesome thoughts. That I am being freed of the pain I hold so tightly. I feel each tear releasing me from the pain that collects in the walls of my mind.

 I feel myself becoming whole. As I cry I do not look away from the mirror. I keep myself enveloped in this moment. I start to spill the misery that has clogged the pores of my veins and release what spoiled blood rushes through them.

 Upon the final moments of my collapse. I see her, I feel her there, before me in the mirror. Like a ghost, her face slowly appears in the mist of another place. I see her smile and I reach for her. But I am stopped by the truth of reality and she fades.

But in this moment, at the end of it. I can feel her letting me go, I can feel myself releasing the hold I had upon her.

This, is where I start.
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How does one move on from a loss of love?
Have you experienced such heartbreak? 

Be brave, leap into the pages of,  A Man's Traveled Heart
Coming soon, The Bleeding of Words

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