I call this my “Picasso Poem”, I hope you’ll know why when you read it. I was inspired to write it when a friend showed me a book of poems that were written and illustrated in the style of famous artists. It is also inspired by the events going on in her life and a few of my own. This is my Valentine’s Day poem a day late, this is my honest take on romance, love, and commitment. This is what true love feels like after you’ve survived the storms that almost destroy you. This is how it feels to choose forgiveness. Becoming new people, while holding onto each other through the change, is a powerful bond. There is so much history behind and between you, and so much comfort in knowing that even through misunderstandings, hurt feelings, disappointments, and discouragements, there is also forgiveness, hope, and the choice to love. This is the part of love that’s not roses, chocolates, and excitement. It’s the part of love that apologizes, holds each other through heartache, some of it inflicted by one another, and cleans up the mess made by neglect, ignorance, and selfishness. This is what love looks like when you make room in your heart for the one you love to struggle, suffer, grow and change, and still have a place there. Middle age is the birthplace of lifelong lovers.

 

Recycled Hearts

by Vernie Lynn DeMille

 

Affection drips

From fingertips

Like blood from where I’ve sliced

 

My heart wide open 

For your pleasure,

To earn the title “nice”.

 

Severed hands

And spatter lands,

A gift for you to see,

 

Of service done,

To gain your favor

And be thus pleased with me. 

 

I walk through mines

And in good time

Lose limbs to someone’s hate

 

But I gave my all,

You can’t deny,

To your cause, your dream, your faith. 

 

I lie in pieces

And part of me says

“This no man’s land is full,

 

“Of woman’s work

Where I’ve deserted myself,

A man’s wishes to fulfill.”

 

So dead I gather

What I had rather

Kept whole, unharmed, complete,

 

A self in fragments,

A basket full of being,

Laid seeping at your feet,

 

And beg with tongue,

From mouth undone,

“Is it enough, good sir?

 

“To be thus torn,

Decapitated, bloodied, burned,

For the hopes you begged me for?”

 

Your gracious smile

You bestow all while

You repair me piece by piece:

 

Here eyes and breasts,

Some hair, a nice butt,

With my hands sewn upon my feet.

 

“An ear and a nose,

Who knows where they go?

It’s not as if we look the same

 

Or share genetics,

Or beginnings, or history.”

From skewed lips you hear me complain

 

And frown and query

“Can’t you just be happy?

And see everything I do for us, friend?”

 

But it’s difficult to see

With my eyes placed behind

And bent over with shoes at arms end. 

 

So bowed before you,

You know I adore you,

Stitched up as I am by your hand.

 

Broken-gaited I follow,

While you excuse my slow steps

To those who don’t understand,

 

And judge your art

With a critics heart

And marvel at your skill,

 

While pitying you

For this helpless help meet

You’ve created by your will.

 

I hear the scorn

For flesh wearied and torn,

Just waiting for release

 

From long pretense

And labor in vain

For the enduring lie of peace.

 

I twist my bolted on head to see

The present, the past, and dreams,

Where I stand on the X that marks my spot.

 

I Take off my hands, unscrew my feet

Replace my parts in an order unknown

And use my teeth to rewrite my thoughts.

 

I gave you my heart

You gave me your life

I called you my love

You named me your wife.

We built each other 

with swords, our bloody tongues,

Words wished unsaid

Deeds wished undone.

 

And  here on the other side of lies

Where old dreams rise, breathe brief, and die

In our arms, a discontent.

 

Here on the further side of love

Where the cost is counted, measured, paid;

And we know how each tear is spent.

 

I look at you with reborn eyes

And see the stitches in your side,

Feel the needle in my hand,

 

Place my fingertips beneath 

your recycled heart, feel mine ache

And understand:

 

I gave up my heart, you gave yours too,

We’re not what we were, we’re something new.

Two parts, but growth, like seeds expand

 

Beyond the familiar the safe and known,

And destroy by discovery, with the carnage

That whole-hearted lovers demand.

 

I see from your fingers,

You speak from my ears

We feel from each others skin

 

And a new existence, a hybrid soul, 

Spins out from what we’ve made:

Just you and I, our only kin. 

 

June 29, 2019