Monday 25 March 2013

cardiac arrest.

the heart is a many-ridged thing
not two curved pieces folding into each other
it has nooks that no one’s ever told you about
            it shrinks and then explodes
                        with something thick and awful and necessary.

it has valves and doors and windows
and you crawled in from underneath the floorboards
            you poisoned the water
                        you hid yourself in a crevice.

you hid where my fumbling fingers could not pry you loose
            where I could not rip your leeching flesh from me
                        without first tearing away fingernails full of my own vein and tissue.
my heart pumped you through me
until you became part of the system; thick and awful and necessary
            until even my toes needed you to survive.

and that’s how it went for minutes or years
            I don’t know
but one day you slipped out
            you creeped out from the chimney or the front door
                        you left and you never asked, never told me where you’d go.

not here though. 
            not in that unreachable place in that corner of my heart.
                        not in the place you ruined inside me.

you tore those veins and tissue fibers when you left
and all your poison turned sour
            seeping down until even my toes
                        ached with a rigid bitterness
                                I can't get free from. 

S. 

5 comments:

  1. Sneaked in from under the floor boards. That's good shit.

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  2. I sobbed through this whole poem... it feels like you know how I feel inside. Unbelievably emotional....

    Amazing how you always make me feel things I try to hide...

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  3. this is hauntingly beautiful.

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  4. "you tore those veins and tissue fibers when you left"

    So unfortunately true. I think we carry a part of each person we've loved because they have somethnig of ours we can never get back.

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