Frozen Heart

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