I wonder what soulbreak feels like.

Heartbreak is one helluva thing,

it can rip that heart straight out your chest,

leaving you bleeding and gasping for air,

just a pile of skin and bones

all splayed out in the open for vultures to pick at.

 

But heartbreak ain’t soulbreak.

I never want to feel it,

but I wonder what it feels like.

 

I’ve never lost someone I couldn’t quit.

I quit smoking a while back,

a few days later picked it up again.

On again off again diminishes my resilience,

exposes me like a wind-swept hill in a desert countryside,

constant fret over some chemical I need to be rid of

 

but, addiction ain’t soulbreak.

I never want to feel it,

but I wonder what it feels like.

 

Like the “lucky one” who didn’t die in a missile strike

you carry on like you just walked out of a bomb blast. Everything

is ravaged, all outside stimulus is padded, like experiencing life

in a sound proof room, pulsating to the beat of a heart, on adrenaline.

Love is a battlefield they say, but especially the dying part,

the end of something as cherished as life or love, that shit ain’t pretty.

 

But a battlefield ain’t soulbreak.

I never want to feel it,

but I wonder what it feels like.

 

I’ve seen it happen, in movies repeatedly

but only once in reality. Vanished love, leaving a vacuum

for despair and black anguish to flood in, to fill

a missing gap that use’ta be shaped like someone

you cherished even more than yourself. The soul breaks

when you emotionally realize your love, the love, is over.

 

Nothing of what I’ve experienced has been soulbreak.

I never want to feel it,

I’ve seen what it feels like.

 

Luckily, for those that don’t put a gun in their mouth

and pull that tempting trigger, life moves forward

shit gets better, and best of all, them godforsaken memories

that broke your soul will fade. Keep on, one foot

in front of the other, you will find something new

to shove into your chest right next to your heart, that you

can cherish, like no other.

 
 

Post-script

Remembering the tears flood from your eyes and your terrific bemoaning

sends my soul into a rout to this day. I stood in front of you, exposed as

the coward I truly am, for I was frozen and left stuttering in your time of need.

I see you stripped before my eyes as a hero for courageously feeling

without any question of recompense from your other.

Your tears shame me, for I am afraid of a feeling, a feeling you marched into

 

Without question.

 

We never really recover our past in devastating moments. Our shattered hearts

and minds, assumptions and souls just get patched together again only to

resemble the structure that it was once before. But shit breakin’

ain’t always a bad thing. One piece of yourself has already been broken,

might as well smash some others, more likely than not it was shaped by

someone else in your past, then you can rebuild in your own image.