What I Mean When I Say My Heart Has Melted

Hi friends.

Here’s a little poem I wrote recently. You’re the first ones to see it, so I hope you enjoy.

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WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY MY HEART HAS MELTED

The snow falls slower these days. Like it’s shy.

Like it wants to make sure it’s welcome. Maybe

it heard the rumor about how many blizzards

I’ve eaten. Maybe it doesn’t understand

what I mean when I say my heart

has melted. Maybe in snow-language

melted means disappeared? How do I tell

the snow my heart hasn’t disappeared?

How do I tell the world it never will?

I’ve not had an easy time convincing people

that when all hope is gone, something better

will be left. There’s no caution tape around infinity,

and how could I want there to be? Regardless,

if I had to guess, I’d say it’s not yet my time

to become a comet. I just couldn’t be trusted

to not race around the universe bragging

about being hot. My afterlife manners

would be terrible. I’m gonna need a few more

decades of earth spooning to know how to hold

the Big Dipper. But when I go–I’m gonna go wild

for the going. If you need proof, find it

in the ten million times I managed to sing

my body electric during a power outage.

My leaving is gonna be the kind of light show

that will have Vegas looking like one plastic lighter

waving at a Hootie and the Blowfish concert.

Until then, l have no plans but to live

in a way that will have me walking through

the pearly gates whispering, “I’ve been here

before. I found this peace inside of me

long before I died.” Then I’ll turn around

and walk back out those gates to the sidecar

of Grace’s motorcycle. “Take me to a planet

where poetry is dead!” I’ll holler. “I’ve been recruited

to bring it back to life!” I hope it goes

without saying that if it’s a moonless planet,

I’m not likely to have much success.

But if the planet has a moon (or many moons––whoa!)

it should only take me a minute to teach the atmosphere

how to have great atmosphere, to bring the oceans

to a slow simmer, to make tea of the clouds, to teach

every living thing how to sip a storm and become

thunderous applause for a single strawberry growing

out of season. I too have done all of my growing

out of season. It’s something about the snow.

Something about the weatherman saying it’s freezing

out that forces me to find new ways to be warm.

When a warm heart melts, it goes everywhere.

I’ve never in my life felt a better feeling

than the feeling of my own heart going

everywhere. When it first happened,

I just stood there, too stunned to speak,

thinking, “All my prayers have been answered.”

And when a prayer is answered, it can never be

unanswered. Do you hear that, Snow?

There is nowhere my heart isn’t,

and that will always always always be so.

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from my melted heart to yours––love, Andrea 🖤

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