Posted in love, poetry, writing

Integrity

She succumbed to influence, forgetting to trust her heart, realizing she’d never trusted her heart, not with as much zeal as it deserved.   She let them tell her how her heart should beat, how many clicks in a minute it should feel, which minutes deserved her soul and which she needed to let go.   They told her when her heart was wrong and when her heart was weak and she believed them and tried to reshape its lines.   One day, after all the breaks her veins twisted in knots, confused, she realized she’d lost her beat, breathing someone else’s thinking.   In that moment, she was free to fall, but with integrity, to fall poetically, trusting she’d fly.

I’m no stranger to crying. I cry during ASPCA commercials. I cried at the end of the newest Cinderella movie. I cry when they name the winner of The Voice. Rarely, however, does poetry make me cry. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

I usually write poetry as a response to crying whereas few poems have truly moved me to tears. Today as I was sitting at my desk, listening to Pandora like any other Monday at the office, Tom Petty’s song Free Fallin came on and I needed to write this poem, didn’t have a choice.

I reread what I wrote, and suddenly, my throat started tightening. Something about this poem makes me cry, even as I look at it now. I guess it’s because this poem is my heart.

–Leanne Rebecca