This heart

This heart doesn’t feel like a heart sometimes, most times actually,

It’s heavy but light,

There are times it carried too much burden, I couldn’t be able to take a step forward, it was so heavy,

And most of what weighed me down was not mine to carry, but it took ages to realize that and learn how to go through life lightly,

Sometimes its strong, sometimes, it’s weak,

There are times when I’m solid as a rock but there are times when everything crumbles down and I’m a mess, wailing in misery, pain and worry,

There are days when there’s so much light that it blinds me,

But other days, darkness wraps around it like a weed, until I feel suffocated, have trouble breathing and my heart feels like bursting,

This heart, there are days when it’s open and days when it’s closed,

It has security guards manning the entrance all day and all night long,

Sometimes, they are so aggressive and shoot people before they have a chance of explaining themselves,

They love keeping people away and shutting them off,

Some innocent people have been injured in a bid to get in and others have come out of it bitter, wounded and lost,

At times, it’s so easy to walk in, like walking into a washroom.

This heart, I wonder how it’s still beating,

It’s made of broken pieces sewed together with weak threads of hope and love,

Some of the pieces are missing and I doubt if they will ever be found,

This heart is cold but warm,

There are days when it melts like butter on a frying pan and people who meet me on days like these, say I’m kind, welcoming, good…

But on days when it’s cold, when I’m too numb to feel anything, they say I’m heartless inconsiderate and cold.

This heart, it has so many layers covering it and so many locks protecting it like a treasure or something, but it is a treasure, right?

Sometimes, they say I’m selfish and overprotective, and it’s true,

There are so many times I was reckless with it, watched it bleed, scream, cry and hurt but I didn’t listen to it when it communicated,

I let it get pricked, stabbed and pierced and when it bled that’s when I felt the jabbing pain and the regrets,

Nowadays, even when it’s silent I still listen to it.

This heart has loved and hated,

It has broken other people’s hearts and has also been broken,

Broken by promises, expectations, love, truth, lies, honesty, and betrayal.

This heart, this heart has been in places it shouldn’t have been and called home places that were strange, unwelcoming, unloving, like a bed of thorns,

This heart has been a prisoner but it has also been free,

Deep within it lies so many good and bad memories, it’s like a series of incomplete films,

Of a past that could be, a future that could be, of a life that could be.

This heart, sometimes it’s a home, sometimes it’s the worst place to be in, it’s a heaven, and it’s a hell,

Sometimes I’m the god, sometimes the devil,

There are days I heal people and set them free, other days, I burn and destroy them,

It’s a heart made of stone, it’s a heart made of jelly,

It has called strangers lovers and lovers strangers,

This heart is made of hope and despair,

Motivation and discouragement,

Courage and fear,

Love and hatred,

The past and the present,

This heart is whole but incomplete,

Made up of ashes and soot,

It’s dark, sad, happy, deep, shallow, lonely, crowded, beautiful, ugly…

It’s broken but its still beating,

This, this is the story of my heart.