A fragmented heart housing a dwelling of errors






So then

I guess this is it.

Here I am, 

Here we are. 

This is what this world is now I guess, 

A broken heart trying to beat and force out the broken glass

That corrodes the arteries and  makes it harder

To breathe.
And so we stagger, 

Our hands grasping at nothing but oh, it must be something.

Because surely

 this can’t be all that this world has to give us--

And try not to fall as we wander the skeleton

Of this old creaky house with

 the furniture covered in white dusty sheets,

bleached by the sun.
Sometimes we peer out of the warped glass windows

Bubbled and bloated from years of 

Ingesting conjunctions and pronouns.

We peep through the faded curtains, slightly parted

And glimpse what could be

but we are not brave enough to open the window.

Because we are scared of facing the mistakes we’ve made.
Our feet scuff across the wooden floor

Filling us with splinters we don’t  see until it’s too late.

Pictures in dim frames fall off the walls behind us but

Only a few get hung back up.

We are not paying attention to things of the past and future

Only the present.
In the bedrooms, vases of etiolated tattered flowers 

Take leaps off the bedside tables, smashing their existence.

But we do not notice natural beauty committing suicide next to us

Because of the things we’ve said.
And meanwhile, 

Our broken heart of a population is failing.

The pieces all thumping at different intervals

And we sit oblivious

Ignoring the glassen slivers that penetrate deep.
We throw rocks at windchimes, listen

To them cascade in pure silver violence as

Their colors drift and join
The smoke that curls out of the patchwork chimney is

Dense and full of voices, 

faces too.

All struggling to be seen but

Evaporating before they can become completely relevant.
We try to light the candles in the dining room

That have already melted out

Hoping that these little waxen figures will once more shed light on our situations.

Instead, we catch the polished table on fire

Alighting the stable base holding everything up.

The one thing we don’t want to burn

Is turning to ash beneath our shaking fingers.
The faucet in the kitchen won’t stop running

Dripping out the truth that we have whitewashed for our own sake, 

And the cabinets open and close on their own, 

Dispelling things we wish to stay locked up.

The cold tile floor is harsh like sandpaper

Scraping us raw until we are bare and open and can’t hide anymore.
The mail is piling up

Bills that we don’t open, don’t pay, don’t address.

Because why do those when we can fill out subscriptions for new magazines instead?

Just leave the important papers on a chair, we’ll regret it later when we’re evicted, 

But not right now

Not while we can flop down on pillows and cushions

Stuffed with self love and reassurance

And read our pages filled with gossip that doesn’t matter now

And won’t in the future.
Because the way we’re running this house?

It will soon collapse from the weight of all our wrongs.

And as for the glass shards---they will soon reach the middle of this broken heart

And stop the pulsing center.

There won’t be a future.
 

Stargirl

VT

18 years old

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