Heart

Every beat hurts,
a sideways slicing in my chest,
rhythmic reminder:
there is no love,
there is no love,
there is no love,
there is no love.
Though we may consciously think
with the meat in our skulls,
it is the fluttering organ
which pumps away in the ribcage
that operates as the seat of the emotions.
Every disappointment
is another stabbing shock
to my weakened muscle,
every piercing rejection,
every broken promise,
every canceled plan -
even when I sit at home
in a state of abeyance,
reminding myself that
there is no love,
there is no love,
there is no love,
instructing myself to
steel my heart
against the upcoming loss.
And yet when that loss comes
or goes,
it is as if lightning struck,
electrifying my nerves
and sending my heart into overdrive,
pounding madly with distress,
threatening to ricochet right out
of my stricken chest.
And yet I still hope,
and yet I still wonder,
and yet I still work,
and yet I still wait.
When I was a child
I heard the prophecy ringing
from televisions and movie screens,
from radios and books and poetry,
that someday my prince will come,
Mr. Sandman will bring me a dream,
that I will see her face and become a believer,
but can anybody find me somebody to love?
So far all any one lover has wanted
is to do real bad things to me,
but there have been no princes,
nor dreams from the god of sleep,
nor faces which made me believe,
nor any finders of love -
no one man or woman
who has ever loved me
as fiercely, as proudly,
as passionately, as forgivingly,
as purely, as freely
as I have loved them.
It is no wonder, then,
that my heart still sighs
there is no love,
there is no love,
for my idea of love
this thing which courses through my veins
and drives me to madness and kindness
all simultaneously
does not in any way correspond
to endless unreciprocated favors
nor to begrudging minimal room, board, and care,
nor to more obvious contradictions
like violence or other abuse,
nor yet to forgetfulness, absence,
and the pretense that I don't exist
or matter
until I'm willing to pretend happiness.
Why then
does my heart insist on yearning
after what it tells me must not exist?
But if
there is no love
then whence comes this
desire therefore?
How can I crave
what is not real?
Why must I long
for what has never been?
These questions,
whispered into my heart
by the bird perched in my soul
however grey and thin
somehow revive a spark,
whether hope or madness
is never clear;
but the spark burns
clear and bright
with one song,
one verse,
one line:
there is love,
there is love,
there is love,
there is love.