Requiem for My Broken Heart

 I.

Dressed in stormy grey and bright red lipstick. Having survived so many things over the years. Who fought for life when I wasn't sure how to. The reason why I am here writing this poem. Holding itself together - sometimes barely - and only with cracks and chips and scars to show it’s been hurt, I wasn’t sure if my heart even knew how to break. And still it beat within the cage of my chest, steady and rhythmic. I have seen the death of people too young in my family, and ones who were ready to meet death like an old friend. The heartache of a heavy diagnosis. The shock of news, good or bad, enough to relieve or break someone. The fear of not knowing. But somehow, why is all that different than the loss of the man I love? 

II.

How do you grieve the loss of the love of your life? How do you survive when it shatters your heart into so many pieces that you can’t count them? The spot within the cage of my chest is empty, a hollow spot where my heart used to be. Where there was love, there is only pain and sorrow now. For losing you, my love, is a pain all its own, beyond any physical pain I’ve experienced. I’ve picked up a few pieces of my heart, staring at them as blood slowly drips from my fingers. I don’t know how to put the pieces together. So in my hands they stay, as the blood congeals on my fingers. 

III.

The ghost of you lingers. I hear you whisper, “I love you,” in my dreams. The ache I carry, the pain, still weighs heavy in my soul. The very few pieces of my heart that I’ve found are put back together sadly, with more cracks in them than before. I don’t listen to that one song still, it hurts too much, it was our unofficial love song. Though, I haven’t yet deleted it from my playlist. It’s the small things I miss the most. But it makes the shadow of my heart ache. I love you still. 

IV. 

It was the news your uncle gave me. Death tolling in the ice water mansion of sorrow. It caused the death of my heart, however temporary it may be. I’ve found a few pieces of my broken heart, but it still bleeds within its cage. Just a shadow of the one that fought to keep me alive all those years ago. I love you still, but it hurts my barely there heart. We should have been forever, you and me. Forever. I’m not sure what that means anymore. 

V.

I’m still broken. It’s been months. I still don’t know how to grieve. I don’t even know what that looks like. I do know that the pain is tangible. I feel it like a hole in my chest. Like there is an empty space in my ribcage where my heart was, a heart that was once whole and strong and alive. Now there’s just this broken shadow trying to fill a void. And I have a hard time remembering what it means to be alive. 

VI. 

I don’t regret giving you my heart. Nor do I regret loving you. Loving you was the best thing I ever did. You’re the love of my life. Your love helped make me a better person. The kind of love we had was rare - it is rare. We don’t find that kind of love often in life. Loving you was no mistake. Because it’s the kind of love meant to endure. 

VII. 

Maybe I do have a hard time remembering what it means to be alive. My heart’s been broken into millions of tiny pieces. And I’ve only found very few. Living is hard. And the weight of the grief I hold hangs heavy in my soul. Losing you, my love, is a pain I will always carry. A burden heavier than what my heart has gone through before – the death of people too young and also the ones who walked into the afterlife next to Death. The fear of not knowing. Losing the man I love is a pain of a different kind. And maybe one day my heart will resurrect and I’ll live a life for the both of us. 

Places I Have Left My Heart

In the mountains - the Rockies or Pyrenees, I’m not sure which. In the Mediterranean Sea during a long ago summer vacation. In the pauses of a conversation with friends. In the hands of the man I love, who is sadly no longer with us. At Death’s door before I was drawn back to life. In the watery graveyard that is Lake Superior. In the caskets of people I’ve loved, buried six feet under. Along the banks of the Seine, in the bell tower of Notre Dame, somewhere along the chaos of the Paris streets. At Meadowbrook during a Goo Goo Dolls concert, beneath the sounds of the song Iris. With friends, most of whom I’ve since drifted from. On a seat of a Light Rail train in Denver, that tattoo parlor off the 16th Street Mall I got my first tattoo, the bell tower of Colorado Heights University. Between the pages of my favorite books. On my iTunes playlist, somewhere between ‘radio, someone still loves you’ and ‘in your arms, I needed that.’ Somewhere between ‘sing us a song, you’re the piano man’ and ‘boy, you’ve got a prayer in Memphis.’ Between ‘she’s the giggle at a funeral’ and ‘the purest expression of grief.’ On my skin in the form of tattoos. In my dreams of faraway places.

A Home That Never Was

There’s a home that never was waiting for me in the mountains. Surrounded by snow-covered peaks that are sometimes hidden in high, thick clouds. Where alpine-scented air is thinner, but fresher. A skyline dominated by rugged mountains standing shoulder to shoulder. With sunrises and sunsets drenching snowcaps in glorious colors dripping down the mountains. Bejeweled ridges reaching up towards the sky. Mountains sanctified by the blood of the old gods. Who knows what magic and secrets the mountains hold? What they’ve seen, the stories they could tell? What they hide? There is a home that never was for a child of the mountains. Whose soul echoes with the ancient magic from within the mountains. Whose own bones are made from the roots of sturdy trees only found in the mountains. There is a home that never was, waiting there for me.

The Mountains: A Love Letter

There is an ache in my bones, a haunting call in my heart, a yearning in my soul. A need, raw and deep. All this to say I am in love with the mountains. In all their wild, rugged, majestic beauty, ancient and wise. Peaks and valleys and ground sanctified by the gods who lived among the mountains once. Where old earth and air magic still reign unchecked. It’s a type of homesickness within me the mountains call to, ignite, like I’ve strayed too far away. It’s a slow burn, a fire being built back up from embers, this need to return to the embrace of the mountains. Even if my mind doesn’t, my body feels it, and remembers. Remembers the way the magic feels, prickling against my skin. The way the earth seems calmer, the air more chaotic. How I feel like I’ve come home when I go to the mountains. Life becomes something different in the air scented by early snow. In the place where earth and sky meet, where the peaks become a brilliant tapestry of colour at sunrise and sunset, where time moves differently, where reconnecting with the earth is as easy as breathing. And the ghostly memories of the old gods fill the spaces between the peaks, a quiet magic itself. All this to say I’m in love with the mountains, as a child of wind, earth, and sky. As a child born of the mountains themselves.

Ten Things I Love

1. Lightning and thunder

2. The ocean

3. The mountains

4. The smell of rain

5. Lake Superior

6. A good book

7. The depth of autumn

8. A long drive to nowhere

9. Sitting alone at a café

10. Finding similar souls and vibing