Hearts are too heavy.

No heart weighs me down.

I am not weighed down by ventricles,

full with red blood cells, leukocytes, platelets.

I am not weighed down by atria,

blood sacs resting on the ventricle muscles…

I am not weighed down

by a labyrinth of blood vessels,

full of swimming leukocytes

of swimming platelets,

the mini-machines of healing.

I don’t need healing.

I don’t need repair.

I’m not weighed down by burden,

I am not weighed down by hardship,

by disappointed expectations,

by failure,

by grief

by heartbreak…

There is no heart to break

or a heart to grieve,

or a heart to disappoint.

There is no heart to pump

sorrow through my body,

only a heart

to pump oxygen

to my

grit

to my

force

to my

determination.

I will rise

and move towards

there.

There….in the distance.

Can you see it?

It’s me, above this point, above this status, above this accomplishment.

I will keep rising.

I don’t give a damn about you, or the forces pulling me this way and that way.

I will resist.

I don’t give a damn about being Heartless,

A label

they give me, like

a big letter “H” on my chest,

Like Superman’s “S”

or the Scarlet Letter “A”.

People call me cold,

because they don’t understand

that I’ve never felt warmth since

my heart was ripped from my chest

that one day….

I was a boy,

Flat on the pavement,

floored by another heart-stricken blow.

My heart escaped my lungs, dislocated from my body.

Boom boom, boom boom, boom boom, boom…..boom………boom…….

Silence.

Warmth puddled onto the pavement that day,

seeping from my chest.

I,

had to grit my teeth,

brace my manhood,

spit my stubbornness,

and stand,

on my own,

heartless,

and cold,

Ready to move without the drumbeat of my heart

to guide me

onward.

Poem by Corinne Hallander, A pastiche of Patrick Schieffer’s “Heartless”