The Heart... (personified)

The Heart… (personified)
Friday 09-01-06 1:54 am

I could hear it…under my skin…palpitating…slowly.

Every beat is powerful, every beat is strong. Every time it throbs…is a miracle.

With it I’ve risen and fallen. Often it fears, it trembles wildly.

Also it is down; every beat slow…every beat powerful…and dripping with sorrow.

Though it is very much the carrier of my existence, my being, there are times it feels like a parasite, a cancerous tumor I’ve wanted to rip out since.

I could almost feel the numbing bittersweet sensation…

of my hand breaking through my ribcage

of my trembling fingers gripping throbbing meat

of the pulsing entity bluntly pulled out…

unplugged from the system.

All pain ceases and so comes the birth of life’s demise.
A smile colors my face yet tears stain my eyes.

…But all the breaking, the gripping, the pulling out…pure mind trickery.

The mind plays such a convincing symphony, no?

Again I hear it throbbing. Blood rushes up my head. Tension and resentment color my expression. My heart aches. I frown.

“I am hurt,” it says. My back is turned from it. My shoulders quiver.

“Wait,” it calls. “I feel so lonely. Don’t go. I…” Before I hear the words it said after that, I was already facing it. “What’s new?! You always feel lonely! You cause me nothing but pain! Because of you…I am MISERABLE!” I shot, eyes burning with intense hate.

My heart was stunned… Its already sad expression was now mixed with pain and embarrassment. Before it could say anything, I continue to curse it, now beating it up. I continue to hit it as hard as my fists cold muster. It tried to embrace me as I continue bruising it badly. It was beginning to bleed. I saw how evidently hurt it was.

After a while, I began to cry, my strikes slowly stopping. It strengthened its hold on me, stroking my back and my hair as a sign of comfort. I continue to sob, finally letting myself get embraced, tears not only on my cheeks but also on its bruised-up body.

“Why?” I sobbed. “Why are you so compassionate to me? Even after I hurt you when you were already so down? Even after all the times I’ve shown my hate to you?”

It was silent for a while, its rhythmic beat uneven because of all the harm I did. Then it said, “I’ve been in pain many times, I have been through failures. But that is what I do. I am supposed to withstand all the problems we face. But one thing I could barely withstand…is knowing that you are so sad…and that I am the one who caused you pain.”

I cried even harder and buried my face in its embrace. “I’m so sorry!” That was the first time I ever realized how hard I was on my own heart. I still remember it like it just happened…the setting, the events, the smell of blood peeking out of its bruises. I realized then why my heart was so down. It was all because of my desire for it to get ripped out. I know though that if I’d ever come around to truly ripping it out, it wouldn’t let go ‘til all its strength was used up…to the very last beat.

---Ann Lorraine S. Sia

3:24 am
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This was supposed to be a poem, but then later on, it became some sort of dialogue so I'll just call it prose work. This prose work is just kind of based on how I'd sometimes feel. Like when gamay lang gani suya suya diri, or problema dira, mu bug-at dayon ang dughan. I'd say to my friends: "Man, sometimes I wish I had no heart..." But then anyways, here's the dilly. I woke up at dawn I think to study for Filipino (I'm not sure if it was a homework or test), but then I suddenly had this feeling creeping inside my head. I know I can't describe it detail by detail, but if I'd put it in the form of a sentence, it'd probably go like this: What if the heart could speak? Well, there you have it.