Open Your Heart

Open Your Heart

You are born with it open

Joyous and free.

You don't even know how to close it.

The instinct to let everything inside

As natural as breathing.

So wide open are the passages of your heart

That you can find no distinction

Between yourself and the rest of the world.

Open your heart, you hear,

And you do, gladly. Easily.

Uncomprehending

Of the enormity

Of what this platitude asks of you.

You feel that perhaps

Everything might live in your heart.

That would certainly explain the warmth you feel

As each one settles just beneath your ribs,

Nestling into the threads

You wove from your love.

♥

Inevitably,

A hole rips through your chest

As one of them tears itself from you,

Rending your tapestry to shreds.

And you are left holding your

Stuttering,

Gasping,

Bleeding heart

In your hand.

You did not know.

You did not understand.

Your fingers trace the outline of your wound

As you think of all of the others you have invited in

And imagine what shapes they might make,

When they leave you.

Your heart continues to pump,

Its contents dribbling through your fingers.

It can only try to keep beating;

It does not know how to do anything else.

Numbly,

You pull your heart close

And begin to stitch it closed.

♥

When it has healed

And sensation has returned,

You can feel fluttering against the outside of your heart,

Searching in vain for an entrance.

You feel safe.

Your heart cannot be torn open

From the outside.

At first they do not tempt you,

The flutterings,

The echo of pain still resonating in your hollow chest.

But though you do not want to admit it,

Your heart still beats

And remembers

And wants.

A flutter lingers,

Becomes a gentle caress.

It is so bright and warm and full of wonder.

Your heart aches.

Inevitably,

You surrender.

You reach back into your ribcage,

Pull out your heart,

And tear open the stitches

To let the warmth in.

It hurts

To leave it open.

It throbs with each beat,

Seeping through the hole in your chest.

But, you feel that perhaps

It might hurt less now,

When they leave you.

♥

Your heart stays open

And warm.

You begin to feel the tug

Of your broken threads reattaching.

The outline of your wound is not so raw as it once was.

The edges have grown stronger with use.

Inevitably,

Each one leaves.

But you have left the way open,

And though the snap of every thread is keenly felt,

It stays open, still.

♥