A CAPTIVE HEART

On the floor, embedded forever in the tile,
is a tiny Valentine image of a heart:
It is the only reality I know about hearts.

It doesn't look like a real heart, you know;
real hearts are bloody and soft,
not at all like a cut-out Valentine heart.

After all of the years I have observed love;
After all of the years I have searched for love,
attempted to live as though I knew love,
and at times even thought I was in love,
my own soft, bloody heart remained as unmoving
and silent as that little Valentine heart,
formed so perfectly, and accidentally, in a piece of tile.

I have come to the conclusion that a physical heart
has nothing to do with the emotion of love.
A bloody, soft, weak heart should never be compared to
compassion, kindness, yearning, desire, love...

A beating human heart can only fail in the end.
What lives on as love are the thoughts and words
we speak and write. We can create the most
magnificent love ever imagined with words.
We can make love seem erotic, lasting, pure, painful,
simple, complicated, and even... real.

I have finally stopped searching for love.
It seems I have wasted enough of my life on this quest.
After all, who needs something untouchable like love
when we have such a wonderful variety of colorful,
Valentine-shaped hearts in the world?

My imaginary heart is a captive,
trapped forever in a piece of tile,
colored gray, like the sky on a cold rainy day.

I wonder if I will outlive that small square of tile?
I know words of love will outlive both of us.
Words of love fooled me into believing love could be real;
as real as soft, bloody, beating hearts.

Lora Frikken ~ 8-16-08