Earthquake Heart

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.