SONG OF A BROKEN HEART, by DUSTIN BROOKSHIRE |
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No one ever dies from a broken heart. You regret. You lie to yourself. You cry, but you breathe. You live. You do your part to carry on. A man is just a man. Not rare art, nor do his words echo from on high. No one ever dies from a broken heart, I repeat to myself, force a smile, as we part. I regret. I lie to myself. I cry, but I breathe. I live. I do my part to embrace my feelings. Where to start to process it all, to heal? It isn’t a lie that no one dies from a broken heart. Cancer and diabetes top the chart for leading causes of death. I will die, but today, I breathe. I laugh. I do my part to not be held hostage by fear. I start the day again. I remind myself why: No one ever dies from a broken heart. We breathe. We love. We do our part. |
Dustin Brookshire is a Dolly Parton fanatic, poet, and curator of the Wild & Precious Life Series. He is the author of To The One Who Raped Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012). His poetry has earned him a Pushcart Prize nomination and has been published in Whiskey Island, Assaracus, RFD, Mollyhouse, Subtle Tea, Ocho, Oranges & Sardines, Ourobors, and other publications. He has been anthologized in Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on their Muses (Lethe Press, 2012) and The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014).