Love Like Breaking

A complicated love poem

Your heart has to be big enough to break,

when it comes to loving. The bone

in your heart, like a feather

drifting on a dream catcher ring,

sucks you in like mud

then swallows your feet.

 

And when you stand on two feet,

it’s easier to fall and break,

to hurtle into the mud,

shattering some funny bone

when she gives you a ring,

and your will wilts into feathers.

 

Because love is like feathers,

that hunches on old feet,

all bunched on a bird who sits in his ring,

because birds don’t die, just break,

his birdsong dry like bone

and his voice long muted and  muddy.

 

And if we subscribe to thought that the mud

from Adam’s lungs and feathered

alveoli drew apart and the rib bone

was pulled by some miracle feat

by the will of God broken,

then love is the body entering

 

an exquisitely painful ring,

love’s gladiator facedown in the mud,

gasping through the break

between chrome plate and helmet feather,

shambling to his feet

to crush another bone.

 

Because love is like bone.

Strong and growing, a ring,

a tree’s center, tenderfeet

soft as sapling. The mud

around its base, leaves feathered

refusing forever to break.

 

Love is laughing when boning, is feeling muddled.

Love is erring, forever mending feathers,

Love is accepting defeat, because in the end, love is like breaking

Reviews

[sonnie ibadah]

i was captivated by the first lines;

"Your heart has to be big enough to break,
when it comes to loving. The bone
in your heart, like a feather
drifting on a dream catcher ring,...."
it's true, love comes by unnoticed and crawls into our hearts, our minds, our bones, and our very souls. it becomes another part of us that we never knew we needed but the agony arises when that part is suddenly cut off, leaving us broken and bleeding....i really felt for this piece, nice work!

[Jennifer Johnston]

I feel the same way. Thanks for the review!

[sonnie ibadah]

you're welcome ;)