Arrhythmia

Just because I do not share the abject anguish

I see pressed into your features

does not mean I do not understand it.

I am cognizant that your heart is breaking.

Do not think that my adamant bearing

indicates a cavity in my chest.

My own bruised heart is there

still beating after being sewn and re-sewn with catgut and spider silk.

And though it flutters in sympathy under layers and layers of tempered steel,

the tattoo of this arrhythmia will not confuse my sense of reality

any more than your miserable tears can wash it away.

The situation is wrong.

No matter what angle it is seen from,

no matter how the words are strung together,

no matter what the painful quivering of anyone’s heart might wish,

the weight of reality is a dead albatross

hanging heavy on the rope.

If there should come a time when the storm breaks,

and the last vestiges of this glass dream

lay around your feet in glittering shards,

I will be here,

hands and boots planted firmly on the icy earth

and steel across my shoulders.

And if you should call the banners to arms

from across the distance of this mistake

I will be there,

my thread-bare heart animated in time

with the thunderous pounding of a war drum.

Until then

my hands are empty,

my feet still,

my heart silent.