there's this song called "wooden heart" and it's written by this spoken word poetry band that you'd never be caught dead listening to. it's not really your thing; i get it. but the song has always meant a lot to me because it carries a theme of being imperfect but being together, this tepid optimism about how broken hearts are still capable of beating and the wood is just driftwood from shipwrecks brought back to form something new and beautiful.
i've never had the strongest heart. it lets go of things too easily when they get just a little too difficult. it runs and it hides and it speaks real low and quiet. it's never been one to stand up to battle and fight for victory; sometimes it's just easier to bathe yourself in the white flag of surrender to be reborn anew.
maybe that's how you manage to work your way inside. you ran your silver tongue along the weakest points of my walls and eventually they caved in, and maybe i should've known better when you stood in the dust like a conqueror instead of waiting to be invited in.
but in you came, and that wooden heart of mine started letting in too much water until it became the shipwreck it always tried to avoid becoming again. the wood began to rot; your silver tongue, tarnished. and there isn't a carpenter or a jeweler who can right what's wrong.
03/18/2021
blah blah blah same **** different day
inspired by "wooden heart" by listener, particularly here:
"My dreams are sails that I point towards my true north, stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better. But it won’t, at least I don’t believe it will... So I've built a wooden heart inside this iron ship to sail these blood red seas and find your coasts. Don’t let these waves wash away your hopes. This war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors, pulling fistfuls of rotten wood from my heart. I still believe in saviors. Because we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board, washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores.
But my fear is this prison that I keep locked below the main deck; I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden. And my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right, but they’re heavy and I’m awkward and I'm always running out of fight. So I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship, hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks. But I am all made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam; lost and found like you and me, all scattered out on the seas."