Thus, the image of the broken heart, splintered and fractured in innumerable pieces has gained traction in the collective imagination. Fragments scattered on the ground that leave the owner scrambling to piece it together like an absurd jigsaw puzzle where the pieces that once fit can no longer be reattached. The result is that the entire person himself is broken. Fingers sliced at the futile attempts to mend and the smell of caked blood sickens the senses.
Yet the heart is not a cold, untouchable crystal meant to be kept behind lock and key in a display case. Nor is the broken heart the emoji 💔
comically rent into two halves by some absurd emotional gash.
It is warm, organic, and tough. One thing that I will concede, however, is that it bleeds.
Heartache, the genuine difficult-to-heal kind, is not a shotgun to the chest. Nor is it really a knife to the chest. So not the exactly the moment when Brutus stabbed Caesar, but when Caesar looked into his eyes and "Et tu Brute?" slipped from his lips. The unkindest cut of all is slow and deliberate, as tender as when Judas kissed Christ. Not some momentary lapse of judgment or a fleeting trick of logic, but the premeditated and the purposeful.
In fact, I often described it as an old dulled knife piercing the chest, and left there to rust. Only to be twisted and curled inside the chest cavity to carve out space as it severs sinew.
Ah, but even that's dramatic. And quite possibly easy to heal from. A single traumatic incident while grave and traumatizing provides exactly that, a single incident to focus all your energies on. It is the catalyst and the primary reagent in the reaction. A logical interplay of compounds at the empirical level.
No, the real heartache I talk about is not some laceration, self-inflicted or otherwise.
Instead, it is broken by small things. Daily little moments, gestures, and words that hurt, but only just a little. Things you can ignore, because you like the person. Or in an even more explicit act of self-destruction, I deserve this. So you see, real heartbreak isn't a wound, it's a bruise - hematomic, dull, and persistent.
The days build upon themselves and slowly rupture the capillaries, setting once red-blooded...blood free to clot and coagulate as they blob the walls of the heart. From the outside, the heart is still whole, possibly functional, but diseased.
When this happens, I have mastered the technique to mend my heart and start anew. To do this, I summon all the powers and bitterness of the logical imagination and fashion out the finest poisoned knife I could conjure up.
I gather all the evidence I have, sift through them and find the nastiest bits of that person. He's cruel, a jerk. Selfish prat. A whiny bitch. He cheated on me. All the venom I could muster amass around this weapon of self-destruction and then I fall upon it.
Through the years, I have grown quite proficient at this little exercise. Its an intellectual and emotional exorcism of the soul, and in has served me quite well. Call it a sad defense mechanism or a necessary survival technique, it does what its supposed to do. It cuts through the flesh, allowing the real pain to come through, sweet cathartic pain, and allows me access to the bad blood and pull the dark gelatinous clot out of the chambers and crevices of the heart. Once cleaned, there is a clear, distinct wound to be seen and the real healing process can begin. Fresh blood flows once more and neat mesh platelets form around it, until only a scar remains.
The end result however is that I cannot love that person ever again. My heart has closed, scabbed over and will remain like so forever.
As I said, this is as much of an intellectual exercise as it is an emotional one. When I see a guy again, the whole ordeal I went through often feels silly and I often chastise myself for ever being that stupid. Worst case scenario, I feel hate. Best case, it was a thing that happened.
A recent example is a case of what my friend calls an attraction-frustration. This we mean we feel attracted to someone, that for all the logical reasons should be a good match. Age, interests, and location, but something holds us back. For him, it was a gym-loving sci-fi geek. However, the guy does steroids. He told me how much he really wanted to be with him, but he felt so frustrated about the whole thing.
Why, I asked.
It's because we have the same passions.
Well, that took me back to a couple of months ago. I had met someone who had well, been quite perfect. Even the same passions, or so I thought. My friends were all witnesses to this madness.
So I went through this process, found something about him that I did not agree with and actually realized that what I had mistaken for moments of synergy and connection were superficial. Sure, we liked the same things, we may seem passionate about it, but the reasons are different.
So I told my friend, well, passion isn't selfish. Gym nerd goes to the gym for social media followers, not for the health or the lifestyle. Health for him is just a means to serve his own ego.
Similarly, real passion is attractive. It's like when I see someone talk about something that he really loves and his eyes light up, even if I don't understand anything about that anime or the cars or the sport that they're into. It's because it's something they really love, but it's not about them.
My attraction-frustration guy? Nah, he's pretty self-centered. He only does things, I believe, for himself or the attention it brings him. I mean, he claims modesty and humility, but his actions speak otherwise.
And no, he's not the reason I started blogging and writing again. I have to admit, the whole ordeal kinda made me want to write, but never got around to it and this will be the first and possibly the last about him.
As for the guy that has become my muse.
Well, not gonna lie, it hurts still. But I might just have to change how I go about this whole broken heart business.
It is warm, organic, and tough. One thing that I will concede, however, is that it bleeds.
Heartache, the genuine difficult-to-heal kind, is not a shotgun to the chest. Nor is it really a knife to the chest. So not the exactly the moment when Brutus stabbed Caesar, but when Caesar looked into his eyes and "Et tu Brute?" slipped from his lips. The unkindest cut of all is slow and deliberate, as tender as when Judas kissed Christ. Not some momentary lapse of judgment or a fleeting trick of logic, but the premeditated and the purposeful.
In fact, I often described it as an old dulled knife piercing the chest, and left there to rust. Only to be twisted and curled inside the chest cavity to carve out space as it severs sinew.
Ah, but even that's dramatic. And quite possibly easy to heal from. A single traumatic incident while grave and traumatizing provides exactly that, a single incident to focus all your energies on. It is the catalyst and the primary reagent in the reaction. A logical interplay of compounds at the empirical level.
No, the real heartache I talk about is not some laceration, self-inflicted or otherwise.
Instead, it is broken by small things. Daily little moments, gestures, and words that hurt, but only just a little. Things you can ignore, because you like the person. Or in an even more explicit act of self-destruction, I deserve this. So you see, real heartbreak isn't a wound, it's a bruise - hematomic, dull, and persistent.
The days build upon themselves and slowly rupture the capillaries, setting once red-blooded...blood free to clot and coagulate as they blob the walls of the heart. From the outside, the heart is still whole, possibly functional, but diseased.
When this happens, I have mastered the technique to mend my heart and start anew. To do this, I summon all the powers and bitterness of the logical imagination and fashion out the finest poisoned knife I could conjure up.
I gather all the evidence I have, sift through them and find the nastiest bits of that person. He's cruel, a jerk. Selfish prat. A whiny bitch. He cheated on me. All the venom I could muster amass around this weapon of self-destruction and then I fall upon it.
Through the years, I have grown quite proficient at this little exercise. Its an intellectual and emotional exorcism of the soul, and in has served me quite well. Call it a sad defense mechanism or a necessary survival technique, it does what its supposed to do. It cuts through the flesh, allowing the real pain to come through, sweet cathartic pain, and allows me access to the bad blood and pull the dark gelatinous clot out of the chambers and crevices of the heart. Once cleaned, there is a clear, distinct wound to be seen and the real healing process can begin. Fresh blood flows once more and neat mesh platelets form around it, until only a scar remains.
The end result however is that I cannot love that person ever again. My heart has closed, scabbed over and will remain like so forever.
As I said, this is as much of an intellectual exercise as it is an emotional one. When I see a guy again, the whole ordeal I went through often feels silly and I often chastise myself for ever being that stupid. Worst case scenario, I feel hate. Best case, it was a thing that happened.
A recent example is a case of what my friend calls an attraction-frustration. This we mean we feel attracted to someone, that for all the logical reasons should be a good match. Age, interests, and location, but something holds us back. For him, it was a gym-loving sci-fi geek. However, the guy does steroids. He told me how much he really wanted to be with him, but he felt so frustrated about the whole thing.
Why, I asked.
It's because we have the same passions.
Well, that took me back to a couple of months ago. I had met someone who had well, been quite perfect. Even the same passions, or so I thought. My friends were all witnesses to this madness.
So I went through this process, found something about him that I did not agree with and actually realized that what I had mistaken for moments of synergy and connection were superficial. Sure, we liked the same things, we may seem passionate about it, but the reasons are different.
So I told my friend, well, passion isn't selfish. Gym nerd goes to the gym for social media followers, not for the health or the lifestyle. Health for him is just a means to serve his own ego.
Similarly, real passion is attractive. It's like when I see someone talk about something that he really loves and his eyes light up, even if I don't understand anything about that anime or the cars or the sport that they're into. It's because it's something they really love, but it's not about them.
My attraction-frustration guy? Nah, he's pretty self-centered. He only does things, I believe, for himself or the attention it brings him. I mean, he claims modesty and humility, but his actions speak otherwise.
And no, he's not the reason I started blogging and writing again. I have to admit, the whole ordeal kinda made me want to write, but never got around to it and this will be the first and possibly the last about him.
As for the guy that has become my muse.
Well, not gonna lie, it hurts still. But I might just have to change how I go about this whole broken heart business.
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