“A heart is like a ball of magma, there are the portions that will be buoyed up, there are parts that inevitably sink down.
A heart starts as soft, hot, passionate. but that feeling in your chest when you're scared, or when you've been hurt, is like ice, poured into this magma ball of your heart.
It hurts. It shapes you, and for a while after it seems like your heart is lost because you can't get back to that ball of magma through the skin of rock that has formed to protect your most valuable organ.
When eventually you find a way to feel again you don't do it the same, you need to make your way through that rock, burst through portions of it so you can access that hot passion and affection.
There is a lasting side effect though, in accessing it this way there is a vulnerability that is caused by the sharp edges of rock that formed when you were hurt but burst free of that shell.
They cut, keep you from accessing your heart the same as other people do.
They create points that you absolutely will not go, fear even in this most private of places. Because someone tread there before, in your heart. They hurt you and now you are no longer the same.
You find yourself maneuvering through these crevasses and jagged peaks where there used to be warmth and love.
It affects how you think about love, if affects how readily you access it, who can make you feel it. It changes you.
Now I want to say that it's ok, but it isn't.
Letting people into your heart becomes treacherous, dangerous.
People who force themselves in May chip away at your rock but they will hurt themselves in the process and you know they'll eventually give up if you don't give them something.
Eventually it doesn't event become worth it, all the pain you cause people, all the strife you feel yourself, simply because of that cold feeling in your chest when you were hurt.
How do you fix it? How do you fix yourself?
You love. You feel loved. You find someone who can love you even though your rocky self.
Who isn't afraid of finding you, leading you out of that rocky place you used to call your heart and into the air, leading you away from it so your heart is not contained, even if somewhere in your soul that rocky place still exists.
You fix it by finding someone who makes your heart do the thump thump thing, that involuntary wrenching throb that sounds painful but is actually your magma rising above what it used to be and consuming that rock that kept you bottled for so long.
Something that will teach you how to love again”
-April 20, 2015
Response: I dislike the focus that this places on other people to help you, letting the magma rise and consume the rock is at least mostly a thing of your own ability. Simply time and slow, methodical healing will cause the rock to slowly soften back to melting back to your heart. Hot and churning once more.
Besides that I really do like this piece, it’s been something I remembered intermittently over the 6 years since. A little rough, but the sentiment is still similar.