Vanessa Trost

Of the Unrequited Love of Words

         — to the thoughts I did not write —

The soul of my beloved paper worn thin,

touched too many times in one place as if

to corral the moments thoughts into print.

A wish, ending in a hieroglyph.

 

The written word strikes a chord inside me,

stars in the skies I admire from below

shining bright onto empty paper in front of me,

a feeble promise for words to somehow show.

 

Agony! Grand words others wrote appear,

eschewing my paper, still — forever? — lily white;

besides the place touched too often, now sheer,

the beginning, the thought I — again! — didn't write.

​

Doesn't matter how much the stain gives me pain,

if the thoughts call my name, they are my chain.

​

The Broken Heart

Walking through the city streets, she feels their eyes darting at her, do they see me, do they know I am different, different from them, the healthy ones? I am just imagining it, everyone is preoccupied, nobody cares about anybody else, they rush around, in their own world, she thinks. She senses her heart, but that's probably an imagination too, just like she imagines the man over there looking at her. Does he notice her slowing down amongst the flow of people, falling behind? Now being so slow, the people are rushing around her, turning her into a foreign object, upsetting the flow. It feels as if the others rub against her, wearing her thin, exactly what cannot be.

 

She listens for echoes, from inside her, listens for a steady beat, not knowing if her heart is still beating, is it still there if I don’t hear it? Her heart is probably beating exactly the same as it did an hour ago, before she saw the doctor. The doctor who looked at her and said you must be strong now. And then told her that her heart is weak. Too weak to keep beating for the rest of her life. It only is strong enough for a few more years, he said. A few years are not enough, she thinks, she needs more, the child, the man, the life; her life? The child is too small, the man does not do well alone, her life, her not yet lived life.

 

She drifts through the city, hears her heart beating, and thinks, be still my heart, do you already feel weak? She listens inside herself again, do I sound different? Again, she thinks, do the others see me differently now? She sees the others differently, now, exiting life; everyone else still entering life. How different life is on the way out. The lights are brighter, the colors more intense, the noises louder. This is too exciting for my weak heart, all of this, I should be calmer, she thinks. How can you be calmer when you know you shouldn't get exited? Isn’t that knowledge too much excitement in itself? How can you participate in life if you always have to watch yourself?

 

She thinks, I can't tell anyone. Because if I tell them, they will be upset, and then my heart will be upset, and it has to be quiet, for the child, the man, the life. She decides not to share her heartache with anyone. She will cancel many a family celebration, birthday party and other occasions, with a heavy heart, in order to save her heart for the things close to her heart.

 

The people will whisper behind her back. Oh, she thinks she’s too good for us; oh, she doesn't like us; oh, she doesn’t make an effort. But she thinks - my child, the man, the life that hasn't been lived yet! And so she lives behind the walls she built around her heart longer than the doctor would ever have thought possible.

 

Until the one man came into her life, pushed into all our lives, loud, aggressive, dangerous. He is everywhere, she tries to keep him out of her life, to protect her weak heart; she moves out to the country, turns off the television, tries to ignore him. It doesn’t work, she’s worrying about the child, the child who is different than the other children, its life not yet lived and how would it live it under the man?

 

On election day, her heart breaks, the man broke her heart. The heart she's protected so well all these years.

 

When the people hear about the broken heart, they whisper again, why didn't she tell us that she couldn't? Why didn't she share her sorrow for the child, the man, the life?

 

Oh, if we had only known! Oh, the poor child; Oh, the poor man; Oh, the life not lived.

 

Oh, if we had only known the man will break someone's heart; Oh, the bad, bad orange man.

 

Are they going to vote, march, protest? Perhaps. Probably not.

It is not their heart that's broken - yet. 

​

The Internal Monologue

 

Why wait

Why not take?

If I wait

It might be too late?

 

There’s so much

Nothing is mine.

I always wanted such

Things are in decline.

 

Things are looking up

If I take mine now.

My mind is made up

Everyone will be: Wow!

 

A gift to myself

It will brightly shine

On my trophy shelf -

All mine!

 

We use pretension

To avoid what we have coming.

Don’t want to pay attention,

Craving to be cunning and stunning.

 

If we’d thought it through –

should have had a hunch –

It wouldn't come out of the blue,

That there’s no free lunch.