I don’t have many words this evening. They escape me as the orange cat bolts when I open the back door. They have business elsewhere, perhaps at the ends of your fingers treading the keyboard as I listen to the uneven rhythm 800 miles away: Another miracle of modern technology.
I’ve always had a glass heart. Brittle. Fragile. Dangerous when shattered into shards. Better to be distant and aloof with a glass heart. Best not to be transparent. Best be a good general, keep up the fortresses, make plans in secret and keep them secret.
A glass heart may be easily broken, but also lacks nerve endings and feels no pain. People come, people go. It’s a fact of life. No big deal. Brokenhearted today, superglue tomorrow. On to the next round.
So you come as dark-haired Tinkerbelle, playing voodoo magic wand concertos, turning my glass heart into flesh and blood, tougher, yes, but raw with new nerve endings and sensitive to the touch. This is life lived on the edge, full of pitfalls and snares, unpredictable and perilous; but you linger with child’s hands, your touch tender and soothing, and it’s all okay.
As e.e. cummings wrote, “nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands”.
