The Woman Who Could Not Live with Her Faulty Heart

I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;

I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts like a flayed bicep,
purple-blue, with its skin of suet,
its skin of gristle, this isolate,
this caved hermit, unshelled
turtle, this one lungful of blood,
no happy plateful.

All hearts float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wet-black and glimmering,
their four mouths gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart’s
regular struggle against being drowned.

But most hearts say, I want, I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitous,
though no twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don’t want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen,

and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.

It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child’s fist beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don’t want.
How can one live with such a heart?

Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still
and it will.

Margaret Atwood

Ms. Atwood is brilliant.

Hand in Hand.

He hobbled on his walking stick. She took his other free hand in her arms. They both waddled in the morning light, holding hands, pushing eighty years behind. He walked in silence and she twittered away. Over time their faces had sagged and swelled in the same places, making them look so much alike. It’s the cutest sight to see on a Thursday morning.

I don’t know if that is love that they both held in their hands. Something kept them together, be it her constant chatter or his silence to make room for them.

I guess forever looks something like a softly leathered hand on a Thursday morning.

Delirium

Having crushes is the most fun a girl can have with her clothes on.

Girl meets boy, usually within a 5 metre radius or in my case, as far as my eyes can see without glasses - which is about 1 metre. Girl finds guy attractive and so the story goes.

The point of attraction, of course, varies from pure aesthetics to the most random, the most trivial and the most frivolous of reasons. That’s the insanity: to be so besotted over what could only be described as nothing. There’s a thrill in being so pointlessly giddy to see the sight of him and yet to feel so hopelessly frustrated when words simply escapes you. It’s the exchange of the mute, the subtle unspoken cues that begs for his undivided attention. Swish of hair here. An exagerrated giggle there. A swaggering hips here. An unbuttoned button there. Slicked lips. Rouge cheeks. All ruffled up and gorgeous, you think.

So lost in wanting the attention that you’ve somehow lost the track as to why he’s always on your mind and why he lies in every picket fenced fantasies. It’s irrational. It’s impossible. It’s madness. You say you want it to disappear. You say you don’t want the illusion. But you know the ache is insanely delicious and you want it. He’s the smile that hangs on the edges of your lips in the lone silent moments. He’s the guy that makes you quote the cheesiest pop songs and you can’t bear to admit it.

And you are scared. Scared that you want this more than reality could ever offer.

Still you wonder if that fantasy could be true.

It’s hard to think that you might not be real.
You’re in every word i see
… but do you see me?