Fragments of Cassandra

Nobody tells you
that a heart breaking
is not a metaphor.

It arrives
like fever.

My chest
grew impossibly warm,

as though someone
had struck a match
behind my ribs.

Then my stomach

pulled itself
into impossible knots,
twisting tighter

as if it were trying
to keep something inside me
from escaping.

It couldn’t.
I heard it.

Not with my ears-
with my bones.

A crack.

Then another.

Then the unbearable sound

of something
that had spent years
wanting what could have been,
splintering.

I felt my heart
come apart.

Not all at once,
but piece by piece,

each fragment
falling heavily
into the hollow
of my chest,

where they struck
my ribs

like shattered glass
dropped into an empty cathedral.

Every piece
burned.

Not like fire.
Like friction-

as though grief itself
had sharp edges,

and every breath
dragged those edges
through the inside of me.

My heart
began to scream.

Not in words.
In pulses.

In desperate,
stuttering beats,

calling for help
from a body
that no longer knew
how to save it.

I remember thinking
someone should call a doctor.

Surely this much pain
must appear
on an X-ray.

Surely there was blood
somewhere.

But heartbreak
is a strange wound.

It leaves no stain
on your skin,

only an ache
so violent

you spend days
wondering

how something can die
without taking the body
or soul 
with it.



Be’ahava,
The Mourning Bird