Since it was me who started it,
I must then beg your pardon; it
made sense to let my heartstrings
play the tune of your sweet laughter.

But use my heart as your ink-***
and I'll cry tears blue like ink blots,
asking "why?", I'd ask you "why?"
each time you say that we should stop.

Words run wet right down the page;
'til ***** and *** taste the same;
'til black and blue blend just one shade.
I thought love was something that lived just next-door-but-one to hate.

Hammers on heartstrings,
And I wish to tell you of their
Sound.

Lo, how each chime rolls
Or taps the surface of the air,
Each an exultation of depression,
Creation.

Eyes sting with salt, wetted with
What has been – the foolish enterprise
Of my words. These notes, they
Scale the patterns of my life.
Pure emotion.

Inexpressible.

Hammers on heartstrings,
They fill the emptied rooms with
Sound.

Lo, how each key sings.
Their voice naught in solitude,
Yet a celebration of life’s discourse in
Union.

Ears ring like a music box. Chopin’s
Soul in the spaces beyond time,
Touching mine. Our sorrows pastured
Green, laying life under the ground,
Tough fingerprints.

Hammers on heartstrings,
And I wish to tell you of their
Sound.

Lo, how they still my jittered soul.

Lo, how I accept the drizzle,
The arrival of autumn
At my window.

I'm messing with your heartstrings and you're feelin' out of tune
"FROM NOW ON NO ONE TOUCHES THESE!", you cry out to the moon
You're safe and sound concealed, packed within your hard-shell case
protected by a shield from the hitch, forget the chase.

And maybe you are best alone, a hard-shell case like me
prefer your friends to lovers, seems the way it ought to be
you've learned to tune your heartstrings to the symphony of life
rather than be messed with by a heavy handed wife.

Well I've got something to tell you, which I've learned along the way
and I hope this golden nugget's gonna bless your heart today
though life's a hard-core teacher, take a chance and fail a test,
you'd be wise to save your heartstrings for the one who'll play them the best.

today in biology class my teacher told us that when your heart beats faster and more irregularly, your heartstrings literally tug on your chest, causing your heart to hurt.

now I understand why my heart always hurt at the thought of you holding another girl.

but what I don't understand is that given the way you make me feel, why my heart hasn't started to bleed yet.

As much as I despise it
My love for you is

                                    F A R
Beyond the hatred.

I love your sinful,
beautiful ways,
of playing with,
my heartstrings.

I guess I love...everything.
Your ugly sins.
Your beautiful lies.
Your tainted feelings.
How I wish I could despise.

Oh, your anger.
Oh your clever ***** ways,
of playing with my heartstrings.

Your filthy hands covered in my blood of love.
You never even had the chance to put on gloves.

if they call them "heartstrings"
then

someone must have untied your end from mine
someone must have cut your end from mine
someone must have picked and picked until
the string frayed and split
someone must have unknotted every knot we tied to hold us together.

if they call them "heartstrings"
then

i need to be restrung
so my heart isn't hanging around
broken
for everyone to see.

tug on your heartstrings,
remember what it is
to be human and
to feel.
nothing is more resonant
than a reverberating vibration
of positivity, in sorrow and in joy.

I will love you everyday,
hard as I very well
can.

I will give you my love each morning,
(compounded on the minute),
and I will make sure you’re
well asleep
before I begin again.

I will love you for years at a time
without asking a reprieve
even if I grow tired. Because,
there is no honor
but the honor
of loving you everyday.

and if one day I should notice,
my heart running low,
I will gather up my heartstrings
and wring them out
until we have enough
or they run
dry.

if that should ever happen,
I will take myself to visit each place
I have ever told anyone
I loved them.

I will be unabashed in crawling
on my hands and knees,
gathering up any scrap of love
that fell lost between my mouth
and their ears.

I will weave a very fine net
of lace, you see,
and secrets,
to attract the scraps of love
and catch them from the air
of all those lovely places.

and should all the love I gather
still not satisfy my need to love you,
I know what it is
I will do next.

I am not proud to say this,
nor will I be proud to do it,
but if it should come down to it,
I will put on a nice gray blouse
and ask my big brother
to meet me.

I will explain the problem,
and he will understand.
he will smile sadly,
a smile not reaching his eyes,
(stopping just before the part
where his dimples ought to start),
and he
will want
to help.

he will reach into his bones,
where he keeps his given love,
and pull out a wisp—
then a wisp—
a cloud—
of love I have given him.

it will not even be a fraction,
but as I fold and press it neatly to my chest,
we will both notice its absence.
but, it will be
Okay.

and I will come home to you,
bursting with my salvaged love,
and go on to love you everyday
with that.

and should all of that be gone through,
should I still love you everyday,
it will so happen I need only tug my
heartstrings
a bit harder,
to make that bit more love.

and I will return my love
to all the places I recalled it from
(with interest)
and no one will have minded
because they will be in
lovely awe
at how much I will love you
everyday.

(at any cost).

from the mind of an anxious depressive

from the time i, as a little girl,
dressed up like a princess
[tiara and all,
pouffy, pink dress and all]
listened to my mother tell me
a fairy tale
of a woman who finds
her prince charming,
and is rescued by him,
and lives happily, happily ever after
in a magnificent palace by the sea…
and i, as a brooding teenager,
insecure and reclusive,
observed a
[now viewed as ridiculous]
romantic film
about a woman who finds her
one true Love,
and he rescues her,
and they live happily, happily ever after
in a beautiful three-bedroom home
where they raise two,
perfect children…
and i, as a young woman,
fully aware and adept,
recognizing the world for what it is
as *i see it,
seeing love dismantle time,
and time again....

i am fully aware that nothing can possibly last for a happily ever after.

the doubt is consuming,
the wall is well-built and
unyielding.
my heart remains too crippled
to possibly endure the grief that
falling in Love elicits.

but,
Love finds you even if you have
given up the notion of it.
it gallops in on its white horse.
has bright blue eyes.
sparks a smile that can illuminate
my somber heart.
has no regard for my opposition to itself.
is selfish and greedy and exhausting.

it is utterly impossible to avoid
being seduced
into the black hole
from which i will never leave
precisely the same.
from which i will surrender
a piece of myself
essential to my functioning.

Love sweeps in like a tornado
[destroying everything in its path]
and so the five stages of falling in Love,
and falling apart,
begin.

denial.
i feign disinterest.
i pretend as if he doesn’t
engross my thoughts
as if my heart doesn’t encroach upon my stomach
when he enters the room.
if asked by a friend,
“why does your face turn bright red
when he dares to utter your name?”
i pretend like she is the insane one
[when i am the one denying my heart.]

anger.
i become enraged.
Love has taken control.
the knowledge that i let Love
dismantle the wall,
that i have spent years building,
and reinforcing,
[brick by brick, piece by piece]
infuriates me.
i let him gradually demolish it.
and now i am powerless and susceptible,
and now he has me by the heartstrings.
he holds me in his greedy palms.

bargaining.
i avoid the fact that i am falling,
yes, i am falling.
oh, so deeply for him.
i watch myself fall from such great heights
straight into the ground
crashing through to the
center of
the world.
i even pray to God,
the one i'm not even sure i believe in.
i tell Him that i would do anything,
anything just to take back control.
to have two firm hands on the wheel.
to be the driver
instead of the passenger.

depression.
i cannot bring myself
to shove off the covers.
to crawl out of bed.
i am miserable and helpless and
he is all i can think about.
he is my first thought
when i am awake.
my last when my mind
finally tires of him,
and i fall into a
fitful night of sleep.
yet, i do not tell him any of this.
he wonders why i am so distant,
so removed from him.
what he does not know is that
he carries part of myself with him
wherever he goes.

acceptance.
when my nerves have finally worn themselves down,
when my heart has reached an understanding with my mind,
when Love does not appear as something to be grieved,
that is when i fall in Love.

never once have i
accepted Love from a man,
Love that could alter
my melancholy mind,
nor have i trusted a man with my heart.
[although i have been forced by Love itself to relinquish it.]

i have been obstinate and headstrong
and refused to give all of myself
in fear of losing myself.
but maybe one day, i will be
rescued from myself.

i think my heartstrings
are a little bit tangled.

my brain isn't in control
and my heart's doing it all.

it doesn't know better.
but really, i'd rather not have
tangled heartstrings.

pulling on my heartstrings
grip is so tight
a broken little thing
knuckles turning white
a taunting smile waits
its tug is so strong
it is the bait,
the siren's careful song
my heart takes flight
the harsh alarm sings
nothing feels right
my twisted heartstrings

i don't
even know him.
i only recognize his vitals
rapidly diminishing on
the screen before me.

i'm wrong, this is wrong,
everything is wrong.
i'm trespassing on
vulnerability.

he knows;
he gets it --
how this place
can make you
feel like hell
without even
trying.

if belief were among
my faults, indeed
it would **** me to
scroll again  
        (and again)
through artificial
papyrus, through
reeds and lights
and electronics;

because every
new click
brings another
wrench.
tug at the
heartstrings;
what heartstrings?
these leave nothing behind.

because of you,
i am destroyed.
i am assimilated,
i am protein.
because of you,
i am denatured.

turn down your flame, nolan,
there isn't enough fuel
for you to burn so
brightly
for so
long.

Let's make music, I hear you say,
To flee from all the sorrows within the fray,
Let's make music, I hear you say,
So together you and I, we start to play,
We strum to the beat of the eagle's call,
We pound out the rhythm of the waterfalls,
We tap out the echo of the voice of May,
And together you and I, continue to play,
This isn't music, I hear in your voice,
I smile and knowing, that I have no choice,
Kiss you tender, underneath the moonlight,
And with this our souls, begin to sing
To the melody in the thrilling of our heartstrings.

I know that like a breath you consume me with every fiber of being
a need within me you fulfill
i stagger to keep up with you
the fragmented pieces of choices we have to make
our life before our hearts
our hearts lying upon the alter
our hands up in the air saying we surrender
we surrender to the life that is judging our motives
we just want bliss in the in-betweens of our love spells
our hazy kisses and our deep hugs
tug on heartstrings
while our fists collide
with a fight that meets at the corner
of compromise and patience
our love is patience
our life is in need of patience
and compromise
only words can conquer
communication in the least is the most
and it brings us closer

Tugging at the heartstrings can create music
Or, you may have to face the music*






© Amitav (Radiance)

Struggling to keep my head afloat
Apparently you need air to breathe
Sweet nothings decay into burning dust
And from completion I turn again incomplete

In that water you don't live or die
The pressure crushes your chest thin
The earth rotates for everyone I see
But my earth is a black pit within  

Heartstrings are as fragile as a feather
My feathers flew away with you
I'm not gonna weave them anymore
They end up cut all the way through

Don't touch my heartstrings if you're not planning on writing a song

The night belongs to you
I'm not real until
You're holding me

You gave me your guitar
I gave you my heart
And we're strumming
Heartstrings
Until the sun comes up

It's not fair that you only have to spend the morning without me
for I'm trapped in the night
darkness deafening me as I tell myself over and over that this is real
that midnight is only an hour
that I'll be home soon
and I never feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be
transporting myself place to place
continent hopping like a heart murmur
my soul is five hours behind
and when you sleep my whole being longs for your voice
glasses half empty stacked beside me
I remember a time when my hair danced at my hips
when the moon would be full and heat lightning blinded me
constantly praying to a god I didn't believe in that I could fall asleep
but dreams didn't come
and that summer lasted but eight days
when I can feel your heartbeat you are fire
but now that I'm so far away your voice is tired
your laugh is like a wind chime on a day when the air doesn't speak
milk moons have a habit of forcing me to reread your words
making me realize I now posess curses I never thought I'd have to endure
like how when I touch you I am not the girl my father raised
like how when you push me into the wall I hope your mother doesn't weep

We all have promises we wish we never made
I wish I didn't tie myself to you with silk
knotting each of my heartstrings around your fingers
I'm like your puppet
and it's wrenching because I had always been so brimmed with pride
conceived by my parents notion that I'd be doomed to wander alone
or blessed
if you choose to look at my freedom like it's that of a gift
but I don't want it anymore
I refuse to chain myself to my past
my frosted veins melting in your palms
I am not who I thought I was
I am not the lady my matriarch once bore that hot morning
a head full of curls and irises that told two different tales

I'm so lucky that the trees bend north tonight
I contribute secrets as clouds to the noir
unkept stands of chestnut trying to escape
but I don't blame them
and ink is all around me as I further my vices
counting down to paradise as I move a little too quickly from my bed
the other part of me wonders if I go visit him at this time
and I grin at that notion she thinks that's what I want from this hour
there are moments I forget to miss you
guild soaked as I remember love
I wouldn't call this bliss
it doesn't even scrape at happiness
it's emptiness
but not the way I've experienced before
I don't have words for this new feeling
not yet at least
I'll let anything in as an attempt to starve out this self doubt
but no whisper is as warm as your breath
because with you you don't even need to comfort me with diction
instead I swallow your glances like honey
I hope you know this mindset will never evolve
and if it does it is only to grow stronger

Some hearts change with the seasons
mine used to change at every chime of a clock
I'm stagnant now
laying calmly in the eye of the storm
the light hitting my skin the only thing changing each hour

Soon this will be over
No longer damning every firefly and its nerve to glow without purpose
Soon I'll be at your mercy again
Purple thighed and alive
Because right now without you I've never felt so alone
Eyelids like blankets
Terrified of what dreams could await my unconscious soul
But in the deepest hollows of my chest I hear your voice calming me
Saying what you always say when you hear my heart rate jump
"Let me sing you that song about the stars I know you love"

Her nails skittered across his violin-heart
Plucking the strings to sound a lonely melody
And when he reached out to do the same
They made a beautiful symphony.

Give me your heart strings, baby,
And I’ll weave them into a swing.
We’ll swing until we’re old, baby,
If only your heartstrings hold, baby,
If only they hold.

I once read that we spend all of our lives rewriting the first poem that we ever fall in love with.

I guess that when I was born the universe whispered your name in my ear.

Because that's what I am writing. Over and over again. Your name.

My love.

I will write about how I miss you until the universe brings us together again.

Till the wind whispers your name.

And then. I will spend the rest of my life rewriting you.

Over and over.

Every kiss. Every sound. Evey way you love.

Until our hearts are imprinted together.

Until the universe realizes that there is no you without me. That ours souls cannot be spereated.

And even then. On that day. I will write about it.

So here I am.
    Within your heartstrings.
     I like to think I flow through your mind like blood flowing through your superior vena cava.

Constant;
And non-chalant.

And there you are.
                    Rolling and rolling and tumbling around the empty train station in my mind.

Like a tumble ****.
Where did you come from?
Were you ever really mine?

What is the color of my eyes?

Grey, like the clouds.
At least that's what they tell me.

But you aren't here very often and only sometimes do you come around with your talent of using words to your advantage even though I'm the only person who sees through your fake persona and too long brown lucious hair.

But this one's for you.

Just like the one I wrote when I first started but that was a different story.
That had a different meaning.
A different message.

That one said;

"I love you."

This one says;

"I still do."

Heartstrings frayed and  
weathered.

Scarred, and afraid
to weather the storms.

But to heal,  
you know you’ve got to swim
to better days ahead.

All you can do
is all you can,

A push comes to
shove,  

and within time,
the feeling of
love

saves you from  
being buried within.

A steady minded person might tell you that everything can be measured, calculated and converted into a language of black and white, solutions worked out with sharpened pencils.

How do I measure my heart breaking?

Tell me,at what rate did my heartstrings snap when he told me he was leaving?
How long until all of my broken bones turn into dust?
Calculate at what speed the tears rolled down my checks.
How many doctors will it take to sew my heart back together?
Was it when he crumpled me up like a wasted idea etched onto a piece of notebook paper that everything started to bleed?
What part of my brain did his gentle hands touch that woke my monsters from their slumber?
How many days until this aching in my swollen chest turns into a gentle throb?
When will I be okay again?

Takes this pain and your sharpened pencils and rip the numbers from the dead hands of his name. Do away with the emotion like he did away with me.

She laughed out a challenge and pulled
capturing his heart with her hand and lifting it
like a marionette with aorta strings out of his chair.
Her golden hair, his mud brown hair, their skin bare
as the day they were born.

He brushed against her, and she pulled
his heartstrings again, dancing away, still laughing,
her voice the wind-chimes on his porch; the summer sun
could not shine so bright as her eyes... or was that the marionette
talking? His strings were sore from the movement.

She brushed against him, and he pulled her close
and they felt the strings snap and shivered
in the wintry chill from the bedroom window.
He closed the shades, and he pulled her close,
and she let the strings fall from her hands.
The summer sun could not outshine
the fiery lust in both their eyes.
Their passionate cries cried out in time
with the gentle cadence of a loving rhyme.

I remember two
A.m. darkness, when you would
play my heartstrings

As you'd strum across
My ribcage, tuning out the
World around us- we

Could only hear
Heart beats against chests and
The sound of deep breaths

Before lips would meet
And create a song of the things
We physically could

Not verbalize; some
Songs are only felt, not sung.
In between the sheets,

I could feel every
Note you spoke in the way
You kissed me to sleep.

Last night
as I sat in
the ancient temple
atop the mountain,
my people surrounding
           me, generations
upon generations,
  voices ascending
       in the wispy and
            earthbound solidarity
                 of ancient prayers,
I felt the words
               rise up
around me, protecting, loving
their intonations
           tingling inside
the doorways
         of my brain
expanding the limits
through glass
and sacred ceilings,
       up unto the stars
celestial understandings
pushing through
my crumbling
walls to break
through barriers
         from the thickness
of night
reaching out
      into purity, a beckoning
             of light
and the words, the singsong tones
passed down from the ancients    
like candlelit incantations
         grew soft, invisible wings    
             that touched my cheek
                   the silky presence of
               the grounded power            
             of my ancestors
welling up in the
         dark caverns within
and as we sang
of new beginnings
         and listened with one heart
to the call of the shofar,
        that ram's horn of blessings,
                            my knotted
loops of longing
resonated in musical notes
strands of the primordial
               in the deep forest
echoes
             of my being
linking my soul's cry
to all the people
           of my book
in a long swirling line
              down to the river,
the desert, the oceans
a tight braided chord
of solidarity, of lineage, of blood
the flesh and bones of heritage
pumping crimson freedom
Yes,
somewhere,
          in even the most
                broken chords
                   of heartstrings
                tiny wings
beat                    
        hope

Those uttered syllables you provide
Have my heart bound to my chest
Paper-thin strings
Tie my soul

A bitten lip is who you are
Of flesh raw and abused
Pretty lines
Of a shattered heart

But, words are your structure
your connections
dangling by threads
of hope

And so, the little strings
tied to my heart so delicately
remain to this day
for you.

They may wither away
but words are eternal
and to tug on my heartstrings
are your words.

And I will keep them safe in me. Forever.

There's a feeling I've felt hindering on the tip of my tongue, twirling with sawdust at the end of my bed. Its tingled my toes and tickled my nose and killed all hopes that this is just happiness.

Sleep is for figments and products of sanity, neither of which I can claim heritage. Well perhaps figments in the waking hours of the darkness, but that is a tale for another time.

I can feel his fingertips stroking my sides, reminding me what it is to feel human and vulnerable and perfect. Didn't know he boosted me ego and turned me into the self absorbed maniac you see before you today. Tyrant, remembrr? Oh wait, that's another tale altogether again.

I ramble in the night, in the morning, all the time. My thoughts wander with echoing clarity to encompass the truth about me; not everything is quite right. The teacups are lopsided at the unbirthday table tonight.

Yet again, speaking in riddles and stories unbeknownst to you. Stupid me, stupid Grace, stupider you. Why are you so open to my madness anyway? Maybe you're the crazy one.

This sick godlike embodiment I feel is one I forget isn't real, isn't me, isn't life. But wait. Its a part of me, so perhaps it is real as well? Call a jury, wake a judge, there must be a verdict on my elation. Am I a minor deity or are the synapses playing some cruel joke on my heartstrings?

Heartstrings, why did I bring them into this? I have shut them off for now, for they are dumb and deaf to honesty and logic and do whatever the hell they feel. Or is it whatever the heaven? I forget sometimes where the real misery is, or how the expression goes. I've never quite gotten everything right, being as upside down as I.

Insomnia brings out the manic in me, and I know its not real, but for a moment, just a moment, I belong. I am real, I am loved, I am powerful. Weak little Grace is no more, with her fears and contradictions. Just strength is left, and it is glorious.

Just remember not to let the heffelumps get you in the night, for they are the true evil behind your honey ***. Or am I a heffelump? I can't remember anymore.

This is going nowhere, everywhere, somewhere.

Wake me up inside before I destroy myself, or simply perpetuate my perfection with a caress of your hand. Whatever suits your fancy.

Call me Aphrodite and we'll call it a night after hours of mindblowing ***. But you expected that all along, of course you did, because you know my bones better than we both realize.

When you put your hands on me I feel ****. But yet again, right now I an perpetually **** and twitchy and awake and fake. Dare you to kiss me anyway.

Dare you to see me, psychotics and all.

Bet you'll run like the rest, yet like all good hiders its refreshing to be found every once in awhile.

Find me, and see. See the monster behind my beautiful eyes. That's the day when you'll see what true danger looks like; me.

Insomnia makes me odd, but yet again I'm always odd.

Little miss muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and craves, for a man betwixt her to tell her she's killer and make her a siren next day.

Forget, no, yes, its all I do. Its not how that goes, for sirens are certainly not temporary. I am certainly a black widow every day, not just each odd thursday.

Go to bed, Grace. I beg of you.

Close my eyes and say goodnight to the beloved moon, for the sun is nearly up and it certainly hates me, I am sure of it.

Just never forget all this is wrapped up in one little old me. No one seems to remember that until its far too late, so might as well run now, because otherwise little miss muffet here on her tuffet will be the death of you.

Your fingers traced the curve of my forearm like an atlas that mapped out the route that would lead you back to your heart, but you knew the journey was a labyrinth as complicated as the waterways of veins beneath my skin, so you removed your hand. Instead, your fingers found their familiar solace upon the sturdy neck and trembling strings of your guitar.
You plucked each one intently, running your hand down the edge of the fretboard and feeling each chord reverberating within the empty space of your every capillary.
I moved my gaze to your eyes, the black holes that have always swallowed me whole with the promise of never regurgitating me into bigger pieces than what I was originally.
I found myself reminiscing to a time whenever your eyes were identical to the ground we laid upon the afternoon we first decided to find versions of ourselves within the shapes of the clouds. But ever since, the innocence has slowly seeped from your expression and a stare as hard and cold as stone has taken resisidence in its place.
I allowed my eyes to slowly drift closed and suddenly I began to feel each strum of your fingers within my rib cage, the notes sketching portraits of a love never experienced upon my internal organs.
When you stopped playing, your hand immediately reached for the long-necked glass bottle resting upon the edge of your night stand. You brought it to your lips and tipped your head back, slowly drinking in every bad decision you have ever made and the after-taste that you had begun to crave. It burned your throat like acid, but each swallow was a reminder of just how hollow you had become.
Your fingers found their place once again and I readjusted beneath the weight of your expectations. I draped my legs over your bed like every profession of love that I have never said that hangs from the brim of my lips. My fingers danced across my thighs to the beat of your song, one not as familiar as the one of your unrequited love, but I still managed to dance the same.
And we seemed to lie like that for an eternity, you focused on every chord that never came out wrong like every word you ever said to me, and me basking in the sound of your unspoken promises and confessions just waiting for the day when they become reality.

I play,
And my world disappears
My surroundings fade
Until there is nothing but my piano
Perfectly echoing my voice without words

I play,
I play to the beat of my heart
Letting it direct me
Letting the music flow through my blood
And through every vain in my body
Until every inch of my body is aching to hear the music
Making me feel alive
Like nothing else can

I play
Because the piano calls me
And we become one
With some broken keys here and there
That produces the perfect imperfect sound
With every key hit and a piano string pulled,
My heartstrings get played in harmony

I play
And the sound engulfs my world
Note by note
Measure by measure
Piece by piece

I play
On a broken piano
But I have never felt so whole

You pull so predictably,
at my armored heartstrings,
shattering their strength,
melting them slowly,

one touch, is all it takes,
and I am yours.

Thought I'd have a cuppa
to assuage my carnal thirst
I didn't know what I should drink
who I should have first

I thought of my friend Jack
Daniels to his friends
Life of the drunken party...
But it's only 9am

Then I thought of Harvey
who'd come in from the coast
But i really do not like him
'coz he's a milquetoast

Ah! I know who's perfect!
Tho I could be wrong
But he's tall, dark n handsome!
So very hot and strong!

He's uplifting! RICH!
He makes my heartstrings tug
He is bold yet mellow...
... and that good lookin' MUG!

Yes. I think I'll try him
he's got get up and go
He's the deep and "brew"ding type

he's my cuppa joe!


SoulSurvivor
(C) 1/23/2016