At this turn of fifty,
the pain isn’t figurative —
it is literal.
It’s a corporeal manifestation
of what used to be
poetic and tragic.
Youth broke hearts,
and feelings tore innards.
The joke is that the heart
still breaks —
and now it’s not just that pain:
the shoulder, the knee, the heel.
The validation of abstractions
into the concrete.
What divine irony.
Mary Carson said it best
all those years ago:
Nature is cruel.
Man, vindictive.
Age gives you wisdom —
and the price was always
pain.
I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring—
We make our plans, but they don’t always stick.
Life shifts the rules with barely any warning,
And things can go to hell real bloody quick.
I spoke to my sister of future affairs—
Who gets what, and where the lines are drawn.
But truly, who can say what’s fair or final
When fate might toss it all before the dawn?
Friendships I swore would last have cracked and faded,
Lovers I trusted left me worse than bare.
There’s no way to foresee the next betrayal—
Who’ll walk away, and who’ll pretend to care.
So here I sit and write upon the loo,
Aware no school will teach this sombre verse.
Yet if I sleep tonight and don’t awaken—
This poem won’t even earn a second curse.
I sit and stare at my phone.
Images swipe past, as do voices.
They all tell me stories;
They all give me choices.
But I’m surfeited with life and death.
And can’t truly tell what seems better.
I must have handed this decision
To a love who loved in some love letter.
Now things aren’t clear as I stare.
I can’t think of a tomorrow.
Then may be smiles I can’t see,
Now is just a tsunami of sorrow.
So perhaps, as the summer wanes
And blistering heat turns into rain,
I might choose a brand new story,
As time helps me live beyond the pain.
Hearts Still Care 
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