I started out writing a poem… and then it became this. Some poetic prose.
My Heart In My Hands
You ripped my heart out of my chest, and I grabbed it from you, and tried to stuff it back in. But it didn’t fit any more.
My heart had shrunk in fear and grief, and fell out of my chest, time and time again. Vulnerably exposed, angrily raw, and easily wounded, it stared back at me with questions I did not dare to ask myself, knowing I had no answers anyway.
My heart grew as I did, taking in the pain of others, suffering alongside them as never before, because I had suffered too. It tried to sit in my chest, expanding as it took in the possibilities of loving people, trusting them again, of being worthy, and deserving of all that is good.
Some days I felt my heart shrink away afraid, other days it expanded fearlessly full. It felt like the pull of tides, something visceral and real, quite beyond my control. I rode the waves as they came and went, and I learnt that change is the only constant. Slowly, I grew to watch my heart in my hands and love it, not despite its fragmented state, but because of it.
The hole in my chest had been too big, and then too small, and then too big, and then too small… a rollercoaster ride of self awareness and understanding, laced with compassion and love, for my own broken heart. It would never be the same again, ever.
I realised I held it in my hands each day, and watched the ebb and flow of daily life shrink it or grow it. I must be kind to this heart beating a tuneful rhythm in tandem with life itself. I owe it to myself, no one else will do this for me. I sit with it, and I love it, in moments of deep pain, and in moments of great joy, almost watching it from afar, willing myself from one low to the next high, searching for an even keel, a quiet lull, a peaceful stretch, when time ticks over and the heart is at rest.
All of life flows from the heart, and guard it we must, while we let it beat a little wildly, feel so very deeply, and speak so eloquently to us of what it means to be fully human.
Would I have known my own heart so intimately if you had left it in my chest? I might never have met it, and yet, I cannot thank you for this. My heart won’t grow in that direction. If the only constant is change, then maybe some day it will, but not today. Today, I sit and watch my heart in my hands, and tears fall, but my heart expands, in love, for me.
Pavitar
12th Nov 2022
Thanks for reading.
Dawn at the East Coast, 2020.
