The Voyage of an Open Heart By Christian Mack

The heart finds itself afloat again, in a tiny boat made up of everyone it’s

ever loved, in an ocean of everything it’s ever experienced.

Every time is different of course, when the heart sets out for sail after each mourning;

a glow of renewal becomes the compass for navigation, the

boundless world lying ahead, and the heart is eager to experience all

that it has to offer; the expanse of what could be, just as daunting as it is

intoxicating.

The heart often finds itself looking back on its journey,

reminded of the myriad of whereabouts that have guided it to where it is

proud to be today, like the time spent swaddled in the azurine

sweatpants too large to wear untied, under the teal blanket that held a

grimacing velvetine stroke, that held the heart enveloped in the warmth

of another, looking at the bronzed sun-shaped placard placed above the

number one on the center stile of the first door leading down the winding

sequence of the trail atop the bluff, or housed within the trackpads of

callused fingertips weaving together a ballad on the hollowed jazz guitar

so electrifying that the hearts breath was found caught, beat after beat,

every single fifty-one crushing seconds so tender, butterflies beating

their wings so hard and so fast in the orange glow of the sacral center,

that the heart grew nauseated, and weary of a time past.

The heart does this sometimes, grow weary that is, grappling with the ache of

leaving a piece of itself behind in exchange for a new piece to fit into the

tiny boat, but regardless of how vast the sea is, unflinching in its

churning ferocity, in the deafening silence of a pin drop calm, tides

reaching their crest to the moon and trough to the bed of the sea, the

heart pours out of itself with exalted joy, reminded of the venom that

closing itself carries, and with each beat of itself, a surge of thirsting

vitality propels the sail of the tiny boat made up of everyone it’s ever

loved, in an ocean of everything it’s ever experienced.