When your heart gets ripped out

[Note: This poem is part of an experiment I’m doing with my writing. When I cry, I’m making an effort to write/and or speak into a tape recorder, to express my thoughts. I’m interested in seeing what positive effects this may have on my mood and what art results from it. This poem was written 05/03/05 during a hard cry.]

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When your heart gets ripped out,

you want to paint the canvas with your blood.

And you can’t decide if you wish your neighbor

would play their piano louder

or stop all together,

because the music comes to you faintly,

like the smell of her perfume

still clinging to the sheets.

If you’ve ever hurt this badly,

your mind has repressed it.

You choke on your own tears.

You’re paralyzed with pain.

Colors lose their brightness.

Life loses its glimmer.

And even when you think you’re doing fine,

Loneliness sneaks up on you

in still, quiet moments.

And you lose the strength to go on.

Nothing soothes you.

The pain in your breast feels eternal,

like hellfire.

And you’re trapped between life and death,

and you don’t know what you want.

To still have her,

despite her coldness?

To never have met her,

and be poorer for it?

To have scraps of her life,

a phone call here, a letter there,

just enough to rip open

the wound of your love for her?

Eventually the tears dry up.

Eventually life goes on.

I wish it were as quick as a wave of my hand.

I know that it’s as far away

as the sun setting on the horizon.