inspired by The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The heart is fragile. If you’re going to survive, direct pain elsewhere…
That’s the kind of thing you remember when you’re walking home alone at 3AM after a long night of numbing sadness in fifteen minute intervals. You can’t help but identify with the people who feel it all. The emotional. The melancholy. The intense. The insane. The alive. The free.
And you spot your ex down the street with the catch of the day wrapped and tucked neatly under his denim jacket. You open your mouth to scream but only air spits out. She was right. The heart can’t handle that kind of pain. So you inhale and end up with a shooting pain behind your eyes – “the place before the tears.”
Exhausted, you remember where it hurts –
Left kidney: the jobs you weren’t offered.
The right kidney fails every time you disappoint your mother.
Watching the people you love make poor decisions inflames the pancreas.
Have you ever tried to build an entire world for someone
Who hates the idea of following in your footsteps?
Being ghosted bleeds the stomach.
Ghosting: heavy chest.
The time you let them disrespect you: liver.
Avoiding your reflection in the hallway mirror: spleen.
Waking up, one arm and leg wrapped over your pillow…
After thinking for a split second that someone was laying there beside you:
lungs.
Loneliness is breathtaking.
Emptiness in spirit.
It’s the raison d’être etched on a Central Park bench.
The bottom of a glass, half full.
Promises in maybe, and
Turning “no” into “yes”.
But where does it hurt?
As transcending as love, you feel it everywhere.