My Heart Needs a Home
My heart needs a home,
I tried fitting it on bookshelves among the fantasy novels,
but for some reason,
Tolkien wouldn’t let me in between him and Mary Shelley.
I tried placing it by the stereo
in front of the speaker,
next to the collection of music curated over the years.
But after a while,
I noticed that Hard Rock would cause my heart to turn to stone,
Hip Hop would cause it to darken at each curse,
Electronic music would crumble it down into fine sand,
and the deep, booming subwoofer would cause a violent windstorm,
scattering it everywhere.
I tried dipping it into a cold mug of an India Pale Ale
or soaking it in a glass of fine bourbon,
but time and time again, it would dissolve into the liquid
and I’d lose it.
The bartender would mistake it for a Bloody Mary,
mix it up,
and serve it to the next girl who wouldn’t gulp it all down at once,
but take little sips in between conversations
in order to savor it.
Sometimes I’d be tempted to believe
she’s well aware of what she’s drinking.
Every sip hurts my chest.
I would roll it around in the white powder
hoping to create some sort of protective mask,
but the chemical would eat away the surface,
leaving it disfigured and more fragile than ever.
I tried planting it in the soil with the cannabis plants
to see if something could grow out of it,
But when I had returned to dig it up,
I found that the roots of the surrounding plants
had drained the life out of the core,
turning it into a shell.
When I cracked it open, it was hollow.
I tried placing it in the bosom of beautiful women,
which would always seem like the right place at first,
until each one used the pointy, polished fingernail
of her long, slender finger
to pierce the center of it,
causing it to ooze blood.
I’ve tried placing it into the hands of those I trusted,
but the hands of the strong would squeeze too tightly,
the hands of the weak would drop it,
the hands of the unreliable would leave it in dark places and forget about it,
the hands of the cruel would throw it as far as they could like a baseball,
the hands of the heartless would immediately hand it right back to me,
and the hands of the clean would never touch it at all.
Then I placed it into the hands of my Creator,
my Saviour,
the One who spent ages coming up with its design,
the One who calibrated its yearnings to the finest detail,
the One who refined it through fire and pressure,
the One who is waiting for His masterpiece to
willingly be placed back into His gentle, cupped hands,
When I did,
it fit perfectly,
and glowed a bright red,
as if it were smiling.
It started singing quietly,
the most beautiful melody I’d ever heard.
It has remained there ever since,
and will remain there always.
