Fallen Hearts

Falling from heaven, she saw the heart wrench out of her very being.

Never before had she felt so lost and numb at the same time.

Never before had a heart broken with such pain, so as to turn all things awful.

Never before had words failed her.

What kind of pain is it, that renders one unconscious to all joy surrounding it- all laughter mocking and all happiness scathingly nauseating.

What kind of loneliness pierces beyond sadness to an utter boredom that leads to reckless curiosity.

What kind of lust wraps up the festering wound of a heart yearning for love, to shush it to sleep, to tell it all will be better in the morning- knowing all the while it is a lie. The yearning only deepens as it’s fed with empty pleasure.

(Source)

Such fallen creatures never cry except in stuffed closets and tepid bathtubs.

They never reach out to share pain, for it simply multiplies in virulence until everything seems unending and unstoppable.

Such fallen creatures are eternally sure of being able to fully contain the heart wrenching cry that is fighting for a way out.

They claim to know the all-foreseen, unfortunate circumstances of an over careful heart.

They tell themselves: I can fix it, I can forget. I can always take the punch and smile. Let them get it off their chest.

As long as they don’t know how much it hurts, I can pretend to be strong. It is all out of love, after all.

They tell themselves that, the clawing pain that burns within, will get stuck in pleura by midnight and will eventually turn into another forgotten dream.

And how many dreams has she had to forget. Enough that the each one is no longer a wound but a scar.

And those scars built her heart; tough enough to withstand all attempts to break out of the calloused cage of sarcasm and terrified silence. They’ve kept her safe thus far. They won’t ever fail her.

How many times has she woken up in the middle of the night to piece together the bruised chunks of her being, only to be ripped apart again by the funhouse mirrors that keep her company – they’re all family now.

She doesn’t even look up anymore, she knows just how to pull her hair back with practiced precision. No more does she need to see her reflection- she doesn’t recognize it any longer.

The eyes that stare back are dead, the laugh lines faded long ago. She stuffed herself to bloating with criticism and, in return, it shrunk her belly that used to be full with laughter.

Now all she sees is what everyone else wants to see.

And in the times she mustered enough strength to wear herself, they showed her how wrong she was to think she could.

And so she learned the mantra, “What is love, if not pain?”

And it has ruled her ever since.

9/25/16