Reverberations of broken hearts
Part 1.
Boy meets girl.
Boy knocks
Girl says come in.
Girl says you look at me the way my father looked at my mother before she slowly disappeared.
Boy says only because there is nowhere you could go that I wouldn't follow
She believes him.
He opens up her up until someone else's arms open faster
He disappears like the last vibration of an earthquake
His fault, her fault, mine
Earthquakes only happen over fault lines
She searches for fault lines along her own skin and eventually carves them herself.
She listens to songs about how "love is a battlefield"
but knows the word heartbreak...
Is not a metaphor.
Part 2.
This girl meets a new boy.
She knocks
Boy says, come in.
She says, don't look at me the way my father used to look at my mother before...
This boy says, you smile like the Mona Lisa, girl how can I do anything but stare, you entrance me
she had forgotten how good it felt to be the one entrancing
she'll dance for a while.
then decide she can't let someone open her up again
she disappears and leaves him reaching.
He looks for fault lines from that day on in everyone but
But he still stares
At the Mona Lisa sometimes
Part 3.
This boy meets a new girl.
He knocks
Girl says, come in.
This girl has eyes like monarch butterflies and says the Mona Lisa is her favorite painting.
He says, I still can't trust that smile.
She says don't trust her, trust me, I'll sing for you
She took a breath and handed him the strings of her lungs
Like a child handing ribbons of helium balloons to an imaginary friend, hopeful, but dreaming
he danced for a while
and walked away like the last vibration of an earthquake
Falling in love is not the same thing as loving.
Girl listens to song
Since you been gooone
I knew you were trouble when you walked in, but
anyone who breaks a heart has felt their own bleed, remember this.
when slammed doors start seismic activity
and no one can measure it's magnitude
no one knows how deep to go to find the root of the tremor, remember that
earthquakes only happen over fault lines
but fault lines only matter during earthquakes
this is not an earthquake, this
is the shaking that jolts her awake from inside and says to her, your skin
never had fault lines, you
were never unwanted, only unknowing of the great love already
in your every new blood cell,
raw, and
regenerating,
this love is building the caterpillar's wing
when all it wants is to wrap itself in old lies.
she brings her palms to the shocked ground,
and cries until her earthquake shakes her helium lungs loose
she lets them float away from the tremor and carry their hot air rising,
hurting,
singing,
and so alive, she listens
for the echo of the final shock.
She listens for the next knock,
She says, hello.
She says, come in.
