A Whole Heart
A Whole Heart
How do you find the courage to be loved again? To be open to the risk of pain and torment? How does one become whole again in the adventure of love?
What must be done to no longer be at the limits of your walls? What must I do?
I think this as I sit alone, picking at the pieces of my heart. Placing them upon a table, motionless. Pieces of something that used to flourish, prosper beneath the gentle cool of the stars. Carefully I prod and poke with the edge of a blade. Investigating the scars, the creases, the cracks. Every inch of every piece.
Hoping to find an answer, a missing link. A remedy of a broken heart. But all I can find are wounds, scabs that have churned grey and blood that ceases to pour. A crust like the earth has settled upon my ventricles. Clotting any chance of breath. My heart is merely a representation of what was.
A sad ensemble of horrific cuts. A collage of regrets covered in the misery of rejections. A fumbled piece of art, shattered into millions, no, billions. I have wrecked my heart dearly and have treated it poorly.
I have constantly listened to my mind. It has such sway, such confidence in its reasons. And my heart, it has spoken too softly for too long. And so I have ignored it, I have kept it crammed in pieces in a small black box.
I have kept my ribs empty, giving room to my lungs. But too much oxygen has grown the ego of my brain and shrank its ability to be reasonable upon the topic of love. What oddities they be, a battle ground with much chaos and no rule.
My heart, laying dormant in pieces I label each its respectable part. I hear a knocking at my door, a part of me wishes to answer it. But I listen carefully and ask who bares their presence at my door?
They respond in kind, "It is I, your neighboring pain, the misery you left behind. Have you forgotten the sorrow we have lived in? The anguish we built, have you forgotten the suffering that may be, if you reconstruct your organ?"
I feel myself being pulled to the all too familiar friend. But I look to my heart, as it lays spread apart. I see it begin to quiver, shaking with suffering, I see there is still life. And so I neglect my neighbor and carefully piece together my heart. The overbearing noise of the knock, I do not allow its distraction to frighten me from my attempt to be whole.
I have labeled my heart, I know I must confine all the pieces to one. Taking needle and thread I match the pieces and begin to sew. The knocking increases but I allow no ceasing of my work. Sweat pours from my brow and my hands grow ever so anxious.
Careful I must be, for a simple mistake, and I shall fall to the shadows that knock at my door. I smell the burning of cigarettes wafting from the entrance. Memories cling to such a smell, an odd comfort from memories of friends.
I feel the aches of my bones creak with each knock. Every ounce of memories past, echoes from my neighboring friend. But I remain focused, for I want no lonely heart to be mine any more. I want the restful nights beside another.
I want stories shared of laughter, sadness, and challenge. I want the ups and downs that come with the fight of love. I want lips pressed to mine, hearts entwined. I want something suffering shall never give me, and that is life.
My heart is sewn, it is completed, not the best of my work, but it is best my hands can do. Holding it to the light, I feel it vibrate with happiness. A glow of hope resonates from it, it begins to beat again. Pumping blood, keeping my veins from thirsting.
I open my chest, reattach my organ feeling myself ascend from the crypts of agony. I am now whole, once again.
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Are you still in a billion pieces from memory past? Or have you sewn yourself back together, to become a risk taker of what life has to offer?
We are not without suffering, but are without a second life, A Man's Traveled Heart
Coming soon, The Bleeding of Words
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