Do not ask me how I feel about you,
Because I cannot answer that.
Instead ask me what I feel.
I feel warm sunlight.
Ask me how much I feel.
I feel the number of leaves on the gingko tree behind my
old Cambridge apartment.
There were warm, calm days spent across six summers looking up
from my hammock through endless spirals of leaves catching
glimmers of dancing sunshine.
The memory of those days feels the same,
As the way that I feel about you.
Tag: emotions
My Swelling Heart
My Heart swells for you.
As a plant takes in water
and the leaves become full
turning lush green,
my cheeks grow pink
from blood pumped by
my swelling Heart.
I wrote this poem for my ex-boyfriend several months ago. He was away on vacation and I had a community acupuncture date with a friend. I had never tried acupuncture before and was excited to give it a whirl. Seated in the room with a dozen strangers, all in cozy chairs and blankets, I suddenly felt trapped and anxious. The weight of the cotton blanket feeling more like the lead aprons used at the dentist office when taking x-rays of your teeth. I was acutely aware that I couldn’t make noise as I would disturb all the quiet, meditative people around me. After what felt like 50 minutes, but was probably 15, my big eyes pleaded at the acupuncturist to come over. “Had enough?” he said (apparently aware of my discomfort). “Yes, I need to go.” He took out the needles, and then I went to shed a few tears in the bathroom. I was confused and did not understand why I felt this way. A woman who came in the bathroom as I was leaving expressed that sometimes acupuncture can feel unpleasant if we have a “block” since acupuncture can release those “blocks.”
I sat outside on a stone bench. Late winter. Heavy white somber clouds pressing down on my head. I took out the acupuncture flyer in my bag and wrote the above poem on the back of the flyer. It completely captured how I felt about my boyfriend and the effect he had on me. When I was done, I placed the flyer in a random page in a book of E.E. Cummings poetry that I had in my bag. Later that evening I took a look at the page that I had randomly selected and found that the E.E. Cummings poem so beautifully expressed what was happening in my relationship with my ex (conflict in love leading to a “blossoming” of two people)… or so I thought at the time.
My relationship with my ex ended over five months ago. It lasted seven months in total. During the first three months together, my experience with him completely changed the way I viewed romantic relationships in the most positive and beautiful way I could imagine. Then it dramatically changed. The second half of our relationship was punctuated by intensely loving moments often followed by anger, confusion, and volatile behavior. In the months since the break up, which is now almost equal the time we spent together, I have struggled immensely to let go. I went into my relationship upbeat, happy, and active in my life. Weeks after I chose to leave the relationship, I felt like an empty, broken shell of myself.
This blog is a place for me to send my thoughts and emotions out into the world. I plan to share more than just thoughts on my ex, as he was only a blip in my life, but for now this is the starting point.
My Swelling Heart 