Heart Half Open

Because the sky is gray, I will not deny bluer days.
Or times of laughter, when most the time there are tears.
Both make it very hard to see the other side of things.
But because both are the norms, I always think in terms of gray, and tears.

I know there are good people in the world, and their good intentions.
Enough goodness to balance out the bad.
And yet, it does not make the darkness quite disappear.
So even from kindness I flinch.

My world started small,
Few were the reinforcements,
To keep this slowly expanding universe,
With light, overflowing.

Sunshine relents to the dark of night.
The day starts, only to end.
These are natural matters,
But never the sunset in a child’s heart.

I learned never to expect anything but disappointment.
I learned to keep my heart half-open.

Can’t grow too attached to the autumn or spring,
Lest the winter and summer grow too intolerable,
By mourning the lacks.
Avoid indulging pet particulates before you’re sorry.

Perhaps it’s unfair to compare the seasons to matters of love.
Although love, too, is natural, physically they do not compare.
Plus the results of love are said to be eternal.
But I guess I just assume temporal frailty, as with all courses.

A child, competing for affection,
Against a battle she is too young to understand.
The losses, the battered human spirit,
She takes along.

To this day, my hands seem weak,
For they are truly only half-clasped.
For many have lingered a while,
And passed right on through.

I learned never to expect anything but disappointment.
I learned to keep my heart half-open.

“This’ll be as good as it gets” has become my motto,
When the going gets good, then I see the end.
The possibility of anything better, a deeper love,
Somehow scares me, makes me vulnerable.

Memories of losing out serve to remind,
Of coming in second behind imposter lives.
Rejected and belittled, amid the story of my parents’ separation.
I was quick to understand separations.

How could I ever offer my heart?
I cannot recognize, verify love overflowing,
Even at its truest form.
I cannot get beyond the sunsets. Closure will come.

Despite the sunset, I know there is a sunrise.
True love, even though I have not yet known it.
Through the Lord, God Almighty am I saved,
And provided the promise of rest and restoration.

And a heart overflowing.