How to Write About the Heart
My heart is rain-soaked
sorrow-filled
sodden to overflowing.
It fills me to bursting and leaks
from every pore
until I could water the world with it.
I was taught one must not
write about the heart
rather, find metaphor
use other colors to paint the thing
one wants to express.
For instance, if your heart is breaking
you don’t write that.
You weave words to express the raw wound
caving in your chest
the way breath won’t come anymore
but instead seems to belong
to some terrible burning thing.
You say you realize that all along
you have been borrowing your own life
and now the bill has come due.
But the heart can and does break
it can and does swell
it can and does become waterlogged
with sorrow so profound it begins to feel
like a kindness to put it down.
You think, this thing isn’t working anymore
it’s not going to do its job:
pumping blood throughout the organs
warming body and spirit…
