Cast-Iron Heart

A poem about heartbreak...ahhhhhh, what a strange theme! The simple fact is many of us have placed our hearts in the hands of someone we trusted, only to have that person shred it up and hand it back to us in an unrecognizable form. Love is a wonderful yet terrifying emotion that can cause either happiness or utter despair. It can be the greatest experience or the very worst. This poem is for all of the heartbroken who have felt the stinging pains of lost love. Goodnight....you shall soon love again.

Breathe in, breathe out,
Cool metallic click,
Makes me feel sick,
This is the steel valve that leads to my cast-iron heart,
A heart that I wish never did start,
I sit up in bed, listening to the click,
I can not hear the tick nor the tock of my bedside clock.
The palpitations extend from my chest,
In this gut wrenching sound, I did not invest,
I wish to open my ribcage like a big, bone book,
And reach in with a wretched, metal hook,
Disabling the machine that I once called a heart,
That I wish never did start,
It was not always this way,
But from my path you decided to stray,
We used to spend summers under the old, tired willow,
You used my lap for your head, as a pillow,
Softly speaking of conquering the world,
Your dreams before me, you brashly unfurled,
I would always listen with eager intent,
You could do nothing wrong,
I was sure you were sent, from the heavens above,
But, just like that you were gone,
Without a single word,
You carried out the devious con,
You convinced me that my heart was better served in your tender, loving hands,
That you had the most wondrous of plans,
And that is when you did it,
I was dreaming, in a lull, a beautiful sleep state,
You wiped it clean, our carefully marked slate,
You vanished, my heart in your grasp,
It might has well been in the den of an asp,
Left me with a rusty, iron pacemaker in the place of my warm, flesh heart,
The heart, that I now wish did not start.