The First Time
“…some people think the truth is the worst thing that can happen.
The truth is not the worst thing that can happen.”
-Tony Hoagland
I.
The first time your heart was torn from your chest,
You thought you were dying.
You knew you could not live with the empty space.
So you replaced your heart with metaphors
And set out to create a world where the metaphor was unbreakable.
Now look what you’ve done—
You can’t breathe so you write.
You can’t hurt so you drink rum and pour our pirate chanties.
You can’t want revenge so you leave.
II.
When I see you I have two thoughts:
You are the reason The Smith’s wrote songs,
And my god, you are beautiful.
You are so beautiful
Blinking stars go blind.
But I can see this is going to get ugly.
The metaphors don’t make you feel whole anymore.
You sell out your deepest insecurities for a handful of laughs.
This life has you wound so tight you make grandfather clocks look relaxed.
You hold your body like banks hold money—all locked up.
Your shoulders are glass rocks waiting for the next attack.
But you’ve got it all wrong.
You don’t survive history.
History survives you.
There is no breakthrough without breakdown.
III.
If you’re going to break, shatter.
No explanations.
No limp-legged dog excuses.
No messing with this bullet proof vest fury
So popular with the cops and the presidents.
You’ve got to break like Texas.
You’ve got to take the pain from the safety valve of your heart
And return it to your fists.
Fight your better judgment ‘till you’re sinister again,
‘till your body remembers what it already knows how to do—
bend back
and manifest grief.
Scream torches ‘till you embarrass the enlightened.
Please. No more polite conversations with your death wish.
Give it something useful to do.
Change your life.
Cause I can’t stand to see you like this.
So blue, my eyes turn green in your presence.
Listen—you are so beautiful,
Grass pushes through sidewalk cracks just to kiss your feet.
IV.
Maybe no one ever told you,
But the heart IS a metaphor.
Yours is growing so strong
You’ll have your rhythm back any day now—
Loving like rumours spread.
Dreaming like lunatic spacemen jump from their suits.
Living like you never forgot how.
---
After We Saw Kids Pointing At That Dead Baby Whale
Now that Joni Mitchell lyrics have started to make sense to you.
Now that your beard is no longer a fashion statement,
but a crude three-dimensional graph illustrating
the number of years you pictured her lips while failing her.
Now that you've cried so hard and long the 4th Street
beggars are pressing quarters into your palms.
You know how good it can feel, in its own way,
to be so profoundly disappointed in yourself.
How strangely magnificent, to be this demolished,
to have taken it, as they say, like a man—on the chin, to the testicles—
to have tried to take a bite with your last dangling tooth of dignity
and come away starving and grinning and sobbing.
’Cause really, how much worse can it get?
Short answer: a lot worse.
Don't think about that right now.
You've broken all the promises you never made,
and few that you did, and they turned around
and broke you right back.
So be it.
From here on out you don't have to pretend
to be perfect, or whole, or even right.
Your eyes can take a vacation
from being windows to your soul.
You can hang out with the other war torn countries,
who you suddenly share a language with.
Poland will show you her scars.
Croatia will teach you card games so cutthroat
you won't be able to speak for days.
Iraq will start accepting your apologies.
It may not feel like it just yet
but you've stumbled upon a kind of freedom.
Your stomach now full of pride,
you can take your expectations off like clothes.
Stand outside in the cool night air
and show off your brand new shamelessness.
Howl if that's your thing.
Scare the neighbor's cat.
Breathe easy.
Notice the Moon's gained weight.
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