Heart Surgery For Dummies

(Pre-script: This post best read as the song, "Every teardrop is a waterfall," #37 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading...I'll wait...)(still waiting...)

Just because

you think you have a dead heart

doesn't mean it's not beating just

underneath

what you feel,

or in this case,

don't feel.

You may have an issue with your nerve endings,

in which case I would suggest

sawing open your chest cavity,

and be sure to use a sharp blade.

See there?

It looks raw where you ripped at the muscle

and handed out pieces

(some with a vein or artery still attached)

to anyone walking past,
And oh, that, right there,

that thing that hurts you?
you don't have to keep holding it so close to your heart.

-XOXO,

One Thing

(Pre-Script: This poem should be read as the song, "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall,"#38 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

One thing I've learned
is that people don't fit inside neat little packages with bows,
of which you can hold onto the strings
as you finish the rest of your shopping,
then stop, sit, and untie the ribbon when you want
to look inside and make sure
that what it contains is still there,
pat it on the head or toss in a few crumbs
from left over whatever you had for dinner last night.
I've learned that strings don't fit around hearts,
that a hand is not big enough to hold the sum total of another being,
and was never meant to.
Instead, I have to walk beside you,
let you be as life sized as you are,
not the neatly cropped 3 by 5 picture I
carry around in my mind
of what I hope you look like
when you make laugh lines.
Instead I have to watch where you'll go
and how,
let you keep pace with me if you choose,
this hammer in my heart pounding away
at a chamber that was never meant to
be your suffocation.

-XOXO,

The Thought Hidden

(Pre-Script: This post best read as the song, "Closer," #5 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

...this fragile part again.

Brush off the dust, scrub away the grime and the ring around the drain, and what you'll find is a shiny thing that reflects your face, and the exact look in your eyes at the exact moment you think it, that thing you were thinking without even realizing you were thinking it, before the next moment when your mind moved on to the next thought.

You'd never notice the moment of a thought, the second that wasn't even a second, it was just a poof of a thing, how often such a thought goes unnoticed, like the Tupperware at the back of the refrigerator hidden from view by the milk and the ketchup

but all of life is milk and ketchup milk and ketchup and sometimes mustard, though not too often because mustard stains your fingers when it touches you, and does not come out easily. (Tabasco sauce? okay, but just this once.

Inside, I'm fried bologna ready to explode.)

All this I see in my eyes now that I can see them again, now that I have scrubbed the bathtub and the mirror sparkling til my fingers bled; (not literally) I had to clean them again.

-XOXO,

A Thousand Doors

(Pre-Script: This poem best read as the songs, "The Chain," #26, then "Crashing Down," #34 on the playlist, play in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on those songs, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

I am standing in front of a door
to drop off a pair of tiny unoccupied shoes
and
the door is closed.
On the inside of the door is something
precious, something cold,

something calculating,

something ticking,

something innocent,
and I
am on the outside.
A thousand doors are closed tonight,
this one has closed on me a thousand times
and will be closed to me a thousand times again.
If there is a slight breeze on my back,
I do not feel it.
If a sudden hailstorm smacks me
sideways,
I do not feel it;
I just turn around and let it pound me head on
as I walk away.
-XOXO,

Tendencies

(Pre-Script: This poem best read as the song, "Secrets," #26 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

I tend to come crashing in;
There is nothing graceful about it.
Just wham, here I am and oops,
what did I break on the way down.
I usually stand up to find it was my heart
that broke the fall, and some blood
got splattered around the parameters
of this place;
but I wipe it up,
wash it out,
cry a little bit,
(just a little bit up front)
and then I settle in real comfortable and nice;
and then the next thing you know,
I have fallen asleep in your back pocket.

-XOXO,

The weight of a thing

(Pre-Script: This poem should be read as the song, "Somewhere only we know," #20 on the playlist, plays in the background...or, if you prefer, "Fidelity," #8 on the playlist, works well with it, too. Go down to the playlist, click on that song or that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(still waiting...)

Yesterday at the beach,

I picked up a rock I found on the shoreline.
It was not what I expected to find,
but when I held it,
I realized that
it fit inside my palm like it was a counterpoint,

fit like nothing ever had.
It was smooth and round from tumbling through salt water,
and when I wrapped my fingers
around it,
and put my hand back down by my side,
the heaviness of the rock

felt strong enough to keep me grounded,
or, at least, strong enough to keep me
from blowing away.
It's the weight of a thing that comforts you,
and the knowledge of where it has been.

-XOXO,