I Break My Own Heart

I break my own heart
Against barren rocks I
slam it hammer it it push it.
Pausing only to wipe the blood
and dirt from my eyes.

I break my own heart.
Like a stubborn child
I will not listen to reason,
or be held
in loving arms.

I choose instead to run
toothless and cackling
through the streets.
My knuckles raw from pounding,
filthy with pain,
blind with rage.
My heart broken.

————————————————–

I wrote that poem in 1992 and continue to write varying versions of it regularly. It is the underlying thread in the fabric of my life.

I can see my crazy choices as I’m making them, but I make them anyway. For the most part I don’t mind. I know that the cosmos/my subconscious/whatever contains deeper reasoning that I don’t always see right away. I have long since stopped regretting past bad decisions because I know I had no alternative but to make them. I am not here to be content. Some of us can sort that, and most of us get to be content some of the time. But there are bigger fish to fry. And hopefully, we learn something with each dubious choice and make a slightly better one on the next go-round.

The last couple of days have been difficult for me emotionally because of a relationship that I want very much to sort. I lead a blessed life, I am surrounded by love, I am offered cosmopolitan experiences at every turn. This weekend alone I was treated to a free dinner and drinks at a cunty new hotel and the next day handed tickets, champagne, and stellar company to see Kiki and Herb’s sold out, brain-meltingly good show. On top of that I had deep, loving conversations with close people in my life. I am so very grateful for all that I have.

And yet many times I choose to focus on the smaller things. I choose impossible situations for myself and then rail at the sky when they prove to be impossible. I love people who aren’t equipped to love me back the way that I need, I ingest things that are unhealthy for my body, I don’t sleep because I’m festering. I don’t create because I’m too busy destroying.

It’s exhausting.

Someone I am very close to is experiencing some difficult mental machinations right now as well, and as I sat quietly, for once, thinking about it all, one word came bubbling to the surface and hung there in my brain in neon lights.

Trauma.

Oooooh…

We are all sorting through the debris of trauma in our lives. Small trauma, large trauma, doesn’t matter. Each one of us is hurting in some way. We are putting back pieces, starting bands, raising kids, working jobs, behaving as if we are sane when madness lies just under the surface, waiting for a mere scratch to come bubbling up and taint everything with anxiety and harsh words and pills popped. It’s a miracle we can all get up and do anything under the weight of all the trauma we have experienced.

Seeing this word caused a dam to break inside of my heart. Suddenly I have so much compassion for myself. For my friends. For those who have wronged me. We are all doing the best we can under our own varied circumstances. We must be gentle and forgiving with ourselves and with each other, it’s the only way to keep the madness, the sadness, the badness at bay.

That’s all I’ve got for you today.