Matters of the Heart

Heart is but a Tissue

The night was young and sultry fulfilling the promise of standing true to its name. The world went on in its usual rhythm, cars lighting the roads like little supernatural sparkles. People walked about lost to the consistency of their uneventful lives. Amidst the silky chaotic night, the sky held the figure of a lonesome girl in its friendly embrace. Lying on her back on the rooftop of her house, Lyra passively took in the faint gleam of stars overhead. Contrast to the night's young display was Lyra's tired soul that felt as old as a hag of the medieval century, leading a solitary life. This night, Lyra found herself weighed down by the burdens of all that was around her. Breath after breath taken by her, to calm down and yet she found not a single trace of peace pass by her lonesome figure.

She could not name one particular thing to deem it responsible for the desolation of her current self. It was like a slow piling of passive worries, that overtime from being pushed to the back of her mind, had finally flown past the wall of her defense to hit her face-first with a tremendous force of intentional disaster. Try as she may, but the tissue consisting of muscles and countless cellular entities pumping life and blood to her was a tissue nonetheless. And like tissues crumple and wrinkle in an instant under a heavy flow of water, Lyra's heart was also overtaken by the tsunami of her unfulfilled life. It came as no surprise when she found a weight pushing down on her chest forcing her to lie on her back and take in the passivity of the stars. It was the only thing she could do to ground herself in the moment. It was the only thing that could keep her from dissociating from her conscious identity.

Even the twinkly sparkles seemed scarce and unwanted in the vast blanket of darkness. The abundance of their twinkle seemed to be receding day by day much like Lyra's grip on reality and peace. It was the constant fights around her. It was the widening crack she saw in her family, like an earthquake splitting the ground, with her doing nothing but letting it swallow her whole; attempts at preventing it futile as garbage. It was the slow drifting apart from her best friend of years to the unforgiving nature of changing times. It was the uncertainty of a secure future hanging over her like a guillotine ready to impale her neck off her body any instant. It was the tantalizing hope of a better tomorrow that seemed more and more translucent by each passing day. Every worry, every uncertainty swallowed her whole and soon enough she found herself drowning with a heavy weight attached to her ankles.

The silence of the night was so profound that she found herself going deaf to the intensity of its screeching sound.

In those moments of unhappiness, the thought of a particular figure struck her like a brick out of open air. It smashed into her senses making her see a little light in the darkness of the abysmal river she was drowning in.

If only you were here.

If only you could hold me.

If only...

Lyra raised her right arm to trace the pattern of the few stars that still hung over the vastly empty sky, not letting the world be bereft of their shine just yet.

What month must it be?

What constellation would the stars be patterning in?

Was his there in the sky yet?

Am I too blind to see it?

Or has it also disappeared like him? Choosing not to grace me with its sight anymore?

A sigh escaped her mouth permeating the still air of her surroundings. A sigh which held the unspoken words of her desires, the non-worded wish of her dreams.

In the tranquility of the moment, another hand graced her vision. An arm she was all too familiar with. The fingers that had entwined and enclosed hers in their safety countless number of times. The hands that she loved the most to get the feel of.