Silence of the Heart

 

My heart was born a trembling thing,

Soft as breath, too frail to keep.

It learned too early how to sing,

And even sooner, how to weep.

I was told that love is dangerous-

A door left open in a storm.

What enters warm can leave me thus:

Emptied, altered, misshapen, torn.

I loved a child, I loved a friend,

I loved a soul I could not save.

Each time, I knew it could not end

Without some grave misstep, some grave wave.

I built a wall around my chest,

I sealed my heart to spare the pain.

I traded passion for a false rest,

A careful life with shallow gain.

Days filled with tasks, nights empty, neat,

No haunting knocks, no desperate call.

I swore I’d lost nothing, felt complete,

Yet felt the silence eat my all.

Inside, my heart grew cold as stone,

No wound, no ache, no pulse remains.

It does not love, it does not moan,

It only counts what love contains.

And now I see, too late to turn,

The tragedy I’ve made my own:

By trying to escape the burn,

I’ve lost the only life I’d known.

I can choose grief, and pay the price,

Or choose this hollow, safe disguise.

But in the end, I hear no cries-

Only the silence of my eyes.