To unbreak a heart
Is to be alive
when you feel death all around you
It's to smile
when all your tears are melting through your pores
It's to be happy
when sadness owns your every breath
It's to pretend the impossible is happening
when you know the reality of it all

To unbreak a heart
Is to never have been in love
It's to wash your hands of the past
when your present is made up of ever present memories
It's to make believe you never believed
when you've still got a ray of hope
It's to laugh out loud
when your insides feel like they're collapsing

To unbreak a heart
Is to a tell a lie
To cross your heart and hope to die
To recognize your faults and forgive his sins
To pray for forgiveness
To lose the fight and learn to live with regrets
To marry out of connivence

To unbreak a heart is to have never loved at all

i think the reason why i fell so deeply and helplessly and utterly in love with him was that he was not broken. i thought that maybe loving him would somehow unbreak me, make me a little less shattered than i was. i have seen and felt and fallen and broken and aged and heard and been more than i ought to have but there's nothing i can do about that now. and so i was drawn to his innocent, unbridled naïveté, which may as well be the last thing that has been left untouched by the bitter darkness of this world.

If you don't think I care
I will have to explain the way I feel then. I only been in love once in my 19 years of living and it was heartbreaking and terrible. Ending with lonely nights and stained pillows. Stained red wrists and a hollow mind. Most of it was painful for me and not a happy love at all. It took a little to really think I loved him. Nearly 7 months until those words came out of my month.  Feelings and trust are hard for me because of that interesting cheating blue eyed boy. I think I knew I was falling out of love when I noticed you at first.  You were funny and different per say. I actually liked going into work 10 mins early just to try and say hi. I never knew that saying hi to someone could feel like getting shot and falling for 50 feet. I think the first time I actually felt something for you was when you came over and we talked for 10 mins.  Not anything specials but I wanted more. I think the last time he cheated on me the day after he was at my house and I gave him everything I had to stay with me was the day I turned away and stopped trying so hard. "You can't do that anymore. Move on. Don't keep running back to a ***** piece of crap that you don't deserve." I had to replay that over and over again. Enough to make me think I was better off trying with someone who I didn't even know then trying with someone who I knew more then anyone.  If letting go let me find happiness then I'm okay with knowing your not okay. I'm okay. I'm more then okay. I feel like I'm smiling more then I have in a year. I feel like I could be content with what I have with him for a pretty long time. I feel that I need to unbreak you into believing I really do love you. If I have to be strong for both of us then I will be. I wish I could push and hide everyone away that hurt you all these years to make you believe you are a amazing guy and that I'm lucky you left at the time you so I didn't have to search for you. I'm glad I heard you were leaving cause I would of never knew if I didn't take those guest service hours. Why would you think I would leave when I tried so hard to get you to notice me? I didn't make myself up on the days you were there just to look good for myself. Im not going anywhere and I really wish you would know that. I'm not some girl who takes what she thinks she can get and walk away. I'm not going to take your heart and run away with it. We both know how that feels and I wouldn't want anything to make you feel like that again. If you ever wanted to leave you can take me with you. Run from at all. Pack up and leave. I'll be fine with that. Don't think I don't know how you feel cause I'm just as broken as you may be. But two broken souls can always find a way to fix each other and become hole again. Maybe we could become one by fixing each other. Just believe me that I love you and that I'm sorry those one word answers sometimes annoy you or I don't seem interested enough as you are but I am. I don't look up at you when we are laying down just to look up. I don't hold you for as long as I can just to hold on to something. I don't write about someone at 2am unless they mean a lot to me. It's not easy to find someone who actually understand that sleeping is hard and maybe even understand that being alive is hard for most days. we seem to understand each other more then anyone I know. It's amazing to think that things I feel you may feel too or have felt. This is a good idea You and me are a good idea. Don't leave and I'll try my best to make you understand my feelings towards you. I know you won't leave and I need you to know I wont either. If I'm yours then you are mine. And I don't want that to change.

It took my over 30 years to discover Johnny Mathis's recording of UNBREAK MY HEART. I had been a big fan of his in the the late 50s and early 60s. I, like millions of other teenagers then, had fallen in love under the spell of his beautiful singing. My favorite songs were CHANCES ARE and THE TWELTH OF NEVER. I begin every morning now listening to his musical magic on YouTube. Why do I comment on Mathis' UNBREAK MY HEART? Because my sense is that Mathis emotionally enters the song as he sings it. This results in a transcendental experience, which one rarely has either in listening to a song or in viewing a painting or in reading a poem or in experiencing any other kind of artistic endeavor. It is virtually unique for anyone, and that is why I wanted to share it with all of you.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

We did not ask for agreements or signatures
even a due diligence, check out each others
entrails, internet outcomes, criminal records
social security numbers
marriage licenses, children's ages, moles
on our mountains of doubt
even a fingerprint on a bare breast
phone numbers, mates and mistresses
drinking and smoking habits
salad preferences, vegan, bogan or  whatever.

We did, however, listen to that heartbeat
the words we spoke, the pictures we drew
finished, the colours that we painted
between rainbows
and the children we dreamed
who would look like you and me
if ever born
and how smart they would be
and as naughty as those little titters
of laughter, that cleared every checkbox.
on this shopping list for a mate!

We knew that this partnership existed
there was nothing we could do
to unbreak this bond that grew
from a tiny little seed
into this one big giant momentum
of togetherness.

That's a worthwhile partnership
several levels above commercial simplicity.

Author Notes

The romance continues.......
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago

steps to mend
a broken heart:

1. take a good look at your heart,
assess the damage
2. pick up every piece, dust off the pain
3. call a cab, rent a storage room for the unrequited memories
4. let the clock twirl its magic a couple times
5. undress what hurts, damp what you escape from facing
6. hold the weapon that fractured you and bathe in its every fraction
7. collect every fragment left in you, there is strength in unity
8. remember that self love is the only way to win this battle
9. crash in your favourite sheets, put your heart to sleep
10. take your shot at life, assess all of the possibilities

You were born better than me for now
More prepared, your skin smoother, even,
Your black boots that look like
They’ve been licked by junkies
Your oil-eyes are able to divide the images
T.V. orange and a tangerine
One is not the other
When I will seep inside the hole in you head
I’ll pick and pull to get you
Really get you
Before your full mouth moves
I’ll nod and tell you
Quiet quiet, I know I know
I am an idiot, I run scared
I hide in cars, I cry at celebrity gossip
The red carpet is the ****** scene
Your tongue rolls the same way
Unrolls, let’s the stars fall out
Then rolls, let’s me disappear inside
I hate myself
I reach for better thing than the sky
I grab your hand in mine and I reach for
Toy monsters
For romances written by wine and ****-buddies
For meaningless problems
For music carved in plastic
I let you unguide me, undo the zipper, unbreak my glasses, the ones that are tiny mirrors
But then you speak
And it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen
So
I make surgeries on myself like a night-doctor
I build a tree house in a pear tree that you can’t see

Yes, that’s me buried up to my head in your yard
Yes, that’s me telling strangers I am dying of sadness and lack of substance
Yes, that’s me trying to fit in your head
Yes, this is me setting myself on fire wearing nothing but your black boots
I win.
Keep ignoring me
I write better poetry (and we all know I hate poetry)

La. La. La. La.

The cursed and fated prince had prophesies, I’ve got soap operas
I’ve got night and nights of blank, blank, ****
I’ve got a freezer-burnt heart
And pictures of you drinking neon drinks
I’ve got the dichotomy and pungent mixture of art and ****, of God found in the gutter
You’re drinking anti-freeze aren’t you?
That would mean so much if you were
Keep ignoring me
I’ll send you my hands when you’re done with them
They won’t work
               But you can touch yourself with them
     They will be gray
Paint them red
A red that can’t wash off.