Yesterday I experienced heartbreak. And I came home feeling like a thing incapable of being loved by anyone. All the light in my life seemed to have been chased out, cast under great shadow. And all beautiful things turned formless and dim.
Were there a pile of gems that glittered at my feet I would have passed them unnoticed.
You cannot see very far in the dark.
In my despair I wrote a poem. Which for me is a good way to cope. Thinking about things may put the thoughts out but not the feelings. You need to pour your feelings into something to understand them better. A friend taught me that.
There are diamonds and coals made of the same stuff
One is smooth, and the other is rough
Diamonds are loved and cherished by all
Coals are burned, their ashes let fall
Coals wish to be diamonds, glittering lit
For diamonds have homes in rings that they fit
And coals gather gravely in pits.
Burning,
thick smoke in the air
In furnaces, pizza parlors, and steam locomotion
Lost and forgotten in daily commotion
And to the coal that wants love we say
How could it dare
And the coal that is burned again and again
What mercy, what kindness can it then defend?
Against a world so unfair burned now to sinters,
Where green glens gone, combusted to splinters
And diamonds fly high,
into the sky
Shining in the air,
with little to care
coals they gather in pits of despair
And I am a coal doomed there to stay.
All of my life,
forever and a day
I reached out to a few friends then, and was met with an outpouring of love and support. And for that I am grateful. They reminded me of dim things in the distance that were once bright under day, and that the sun would rise again. And some others gave me
advice on exactly what to do with the pain I was experiencing.
You need to feel it. And I believe that is the thing to do. And there is great wisdom in that. I believe that If you were to push away these feelings, ignore them, you train yourself to be tough and distant. For you either accept the pain or delude yourself with thoughts such as: why me, life is unfair, when will it be my turn, the world is backwards. Or you fill your mind with thoughts of ill woe towards those who caused the heartbreak. These thoughts are poisonous, and to pay heed to them would be to stray from the path of wisdom. And they would not heal you, though they would comfort you. It would be wrapping many bands of iron over the wound and then forgetting about it, and where once was warm and soft now is cold hard metal.
"Take the L" as she said, you need at least one to spell love. And if you take many then you may write it many times over1.
Others still spent the rest of the night with me, nursing me back to good spirits. And it is only with them that I began to really feel it. To let the pain in, in a safe place.
And it was in the lasting warmth from all my friends that I wrote my second poem that day.
Diamonds and coal are the same the end
And diamonds glow brightly
because they are held tightly
And we often look at the tips of mountains,
ignoring the valleys, admiring fountains
And all things can be loved in this worldly garden
Be they gold or gems, or lumps of carbon
But beware the hardening of the heart,
For that is where all responses start
In times that are rough,
becoming distant and tough
Love is hard, and that is why its valuable
The heart must be soft, and like gold malleable
for the souls of people come in many shapes
Jagged and smooth, closed and agape
And if you are like iron
You will be too hard to mould
And if you see a place high and beautiful
And for the rest of your life you would like there to sit
There is a good chance that you will not fit
Much like lines that are supposed to rhyme
Or fall into rhythm, they step out of time
And
Even in the right time,
When all the world is gleaming
the angels on high, a choir singing
And all the suns light is beaming
Your heart will lay there,
in dark slumber
dreaming
So awake and open your heart
Do not harden, do not start
And love will come from a hidden place
ever streaming