Hi friends.
Here’s a little poem I wrote recently. You’re the first ones to see it, so I hope you enjoy.
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WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY MY HEART HAS MELTED
The snow falls slower these days. Like it’s shy.
Like it wants to make sure it’s welcome. Maybe
it heard the rumor about how many blizzards
I’ve eaten. Maybe it doesn’t understand
what I mean when I say my heart
has melted. Maybe in snow-language
melted means disappeared? How do I tell
the snow my heart hasn’t disappeared?
How do I tell the world it never will?
I’ve not had an easy time convincing people
that when all hope is gone, something better
will be left. There’s no caution tape around infinity,
and how could I want there to be? Regardless,
if I had to guess, I’d say it’s not yet my time
to become a comet. I just couldn’t be trusted
to not race around the universe bragging
about being hot. My afterlife manners
would be terrible. I’m gonna need a few more
decades of earth spooning to know how to hold
the Big Dipper. But when I go–I’m gonna go wild
for the going. If you need proof, find it
in the ten million times I managed to sing
my body electric during a power outage.
My leaving is gonna be the kind of light show
that will have Vegas looking like one plastic lighter
waving at a Hootie and the Blowfish concert.
Until then, l have no plans but to live
in a way that will have me walking through
the pearly gates whispering, “I’ve been here
before. I found this peace inside of me
long before I died.” Then I’ll turn around
and walk back out those gates to the sidecar
of Grace’s motorcycle. “Take me to a planet
where poetry is dead!” I’ll holler. “I’ve been recruited
to bring it back to life!” I hope it goes
without saying that if it’s a moonless planet,
I’m not likely to have much success.
But if the planet has a moon (or many moons––whoa!)
it should only take me a minute to teach the atmosphere
how to have great atmosphere, to bring the oceans
to a slow simmer, to make tea of the clouds, to teach
every living thing how to sip a storm and become
thunderous applause for a single strawberry growing
out of season. I too have done all of my growing
out of season. It’s something about the snow.
Something about the weatherman saying it’s freezing
out that forces me to find new ways to be warm.
When a warm heart melts, it goes everywhere.
I’ve never in my life felt a better feeling
than the feeling of my own heart going
everywhere. When it first happened,
I just stood there, too stunned to speak,
thinking, “All my prayers have been answered.”
And when a prayer is answered, it can never be
unanswered. Do you hear that, Snow?
There is nowhere my heart isn’t,
and that will always always always be so.
___
from my melted heart to yours––love, Andrea 🖤
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