read my heart...
Tell me a story….
I stepped into the bar that day with no expectations…a single girl who had no problems with her single life. I wasn’t looking for anything to happen, or so I told myself constantly. Nope…I wasn’t looking. But if anything did happen, then so be it.
It was poetry night. A night when I didn’t have to feel anything for myself…others would feel them for me in their words. I didn’t have to get in touch with my pain. Some other woman would stroke it for me, reliving every ache in literary abandon.
I stepped in with no expectations. Or have I said that already? Well…I tend to say it a lot to myself. Perhaps constant repetition would give it life and make it true.
I looked to the stage where lives were often stripped bare.
Where joys were heralded alongside despair.
Where beauty emerged from the lips of the broken hearted.
I knew many of the women that would command the lights that night. At least, I knew them by their stories.
Shrouded in the half-dim lights their voices would proclaim to all: listen to ME. Hear ME. The words I speak are my shadows…following everywhere I go. I’d even heard some of their poems before. Different words, perhaps. But the same story.
I sipped my beer distractedly…always the best way, since once upon a time I had paid it too much attention, if you know what I mean. I didn’t want to crawl into the bottle to hide from reality…not anymore. I was ready to meet it head-on. Or that’s what I told myself that night, as I went to the bar with no expectations.
There was a new poet on the stage. And the muted conversations got even quieter as she stepped up to her fate…finally dying down until all was silence. Ok…that was different…but was she? Who was she?
She looked down at the crowd for a minute or two. And I felt the urge to hide the scars I was sure she could see around my chest, where my second-hand heart tried valiantly to keep beating and not give up. I wanted to hide my face…where time had left frown lines etched as a reminder of the mastery of sorrow in my life. I don’t know why I felt this way…I just know I did.
Then she closed her eyes. And began to speak. I felt she had searched the pages of my life with that one glance, and was now reading into it and reading it out loud…I closed my eyes. Hearing her lay open my secrets. Hearing her tell the world of the tears hidden in my pride.
How could this be? She spoke of my regrets as though they were hers. She was unapologetic in ripping to shreds the worn paper mask I had placed over my heart all my life. Nothing was sacred…everything was aired out for all to hear. Just when I thought she was done, she would reach in and pull another piece of my life’s tapestry under the single spotlight…blowing off dusty cobwebs to give interpretations of my long-dead dreams.
There were teary eyes and much sniffling all around when she finished. Except for me, though. My tears had come and gone. I had just heard from one who knew me without ever having met me. All I felt was anticipation.
I left the club, but only after having given in to impulse and sent a note asking her to marry me. Of course, I knew that was not a rational reaction, and tempered it with an imploration that she could say no, as long as she never ever stops writing.
As I stood outside the scene of my rebirth, I felt a hand tug on my unworthy sleeve. You know, where I keep my heart, and other important documents.
“I’m the person you asked to marry you” she said, smiling at me with eyes filled with humor, and something else that caused spasms in my other heart. If you know what I mean.
It’s a good thing she had a way with words, because I lost most of my coherent ones until she coaxed them back. We talked for hours about what seemed to be everything. I say “seemed”...because we’re still not done talking. And I hope we will never be.
