It felt like
In the blink of an eye,
Everything came to a halt.
All of my hard Self work,
All the dreams I’ve been working towards,
All the friendships I’ve built,
All the love I had felt and had started to feel,
ALL of that was staring back at me
With eyes I didn’t recognize.
Those eyes…
They were filled with fears,
And insecurities
I didn’t even know existed
Within me.
I stared back in the mirror
And kept asking my Self reflection
“Who are you?
What happened to you?”
At first,
My ego replied.
It talked about my past
And used examples of previous pains
To justify running away from everything
All over again.
My ego, as always,
Is very convincing.
It lifts me to a place where no one can hurt me
Simply because it helps me build a wall
Around my heart and my Self
And just leaves me there.
Alone.
To not feel any pain…
But I’ve gone there before and I realized
That’s not a very happy place.
I have stood behind those tall brick walls
For many years.
Yea it was after a bad relationship
But I hadn’t left them.
I mean I did peep outside a few times
And a few times I stepped out
Only to be met by arms who couldn’t hold me
Arms who didn’t know how to deal with
A heart who had once stopped feeling.
Imagine that feeling you get
When you meet someone who
Helps you break down your walls
And is there to help clear the rubble,
But then you hear them say these words:
“Your heart is cold.”
It strikes you like the biggest lightning bolt
Ever recorded
And you think
“Well now I have two choices:
I can go withdraw and rebuild those walls,
Stay there, feel no pain but stay cold,
Or I could let my heart thaw in the sun,
And not feel the cold anymore.”
If anyone has experienced
A case of ungloved hands
In the cold January wind
You’ll remember how you felt little needle pricks,
When you stepped into the warmth of your house,
As your blood started to flow again
And as your hands warmed up
You KNEW that they will feel better
Once they thawed
But you also knew that it will hurt a little
While they did that.
Well that’s how thawing of a frozen heart feels.
It hurts while it’s doing that
But it also thaws out feelings.
Feelings that have been suppressed for a long time.
Feelings you weren’t even aware you’ve held on to.
Feelings you wish you didn’t have to face.
And it’s at that moment,
When those thawed feelings
Are staring back at you
That EVERYTHING stops.
It’s like a stand-off
Except there aren’t any real guns, thank ‘god’.
It’s actually even bigger than that
Because the battle is not outside of you
With an opponent you could size up
And build a strategy
On how to take them down.
It’s all inside of you
And you have no clue
Where the battle is going to lead you,
What it will unravel,
What will be thrown at you.
All you know is that
You have to be strong
And face those demons inside,
Especially since you were
Doing ‘just fine’
Before they crawled out
Of your,
Previously frozen,
Heart.
You can watch my performance of this poem here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Zg-SuQBPQ
February 4th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
T, I love this! Sometimes strength is found in vulnerability.
February 4th, 2013 at 1:16 pm
So I’ve been told…;) Thank you.