They say it is better to have loved and lost
Than to have never loved at all.
Sometimes I think that they are right.
Sometimes, too, I wonder about my own masochistic tendencies-
Wonder why I revel in the thrill of a broken heart.
I go back to those same old stories:
When the lover dies,
When the war is lost,
When the hero is vanquished.
The pages of those old novels are scattered with faded teardrops
And yet I return to them again and again
To feel that same wrenching in my chest
Somewhere behind my ribcage.
I look at myself in the mirror
And wonder if I’m a pretty crier.
And I look at the vague scars on my skin
And wonder which kind of pain is better
The physical or the mental.
I don’t feel that heartache anymore
That beautiful, haunting, throbbing pain
That let me know that, at least, I am alive.
They say that absence makes the heart
Grow fonder.
Mostly I think they are wrong.
Mostly, too, I wonder about what it would feel like-
Wonder what it would be to feel that lovely stinging pain again.