Frozen Hearts

Do you ever get that feeling in the pit of your stomach?  You know, that feeling right before your first kiss, or when you know you're falling in love?  That feeling that tells you things are just...right?  But sometimes that feeling can be telling you the exact opposite.  Sometimes that feeling is a warning that something terrible and tragic is about to happen - or is already happening.  It's not a feeling of comfort and belonging, but rather a feeling of abandonment, loneliness, and hopelessness.  It literally knocks the wind out of you, making it difficult to breathe.

I think everyone tries their hardest to be strong in life for as long as possible.  But with time, willpower fades.  Every now and then we lose our grasp on that strength and allow it to slip through our fingers.  Depression.  Fear.  Weakness.  I think everyone experiences these things at least once in their lifetime.  But for some these feelings can be a repeated occurrence...struck day after day by life's disappointments.  The pain of life's burdens becomes too much for our hearts to bear.  Frozen in time you become incapable of moving forward - paralyzed.  You cry your eyes dry until you become void of emotion; numb.  All you can do is sit and stare blankly as the rest of the world passes you by.  And you don't care.  That's when you know you are truly broken; the moment when the ability to care about where life takes you has completely vanished.  The pain dulls, the tears dry up.  You're a ghost, no longer in control of your own body.  A different force takes ahold of you - something darker.  It's a force driven by pain...and sadness.  But you don't let it pull you down.  Instead, you use it to your advantage.  You let it fuel you - transform you into a different person.  One who will not have to feel pain again.

All those times in the past when you thought your heart was breaking - that the crack in it was growing with each singular tear that fell from your eyes...you were wrong.  Your heart was not breaking.  Rather, it was freezing.  And the moment you became truly "broken" was the moment when the ice sealed around your heart completely.  It froze - solid.  It stopped beating.  It became cold.

And so you stopped caring.  You lost your fire, your essence, your warmth.  And with that cold heart you began to see the world differently.  You began to hold a new perspective; one of darkness.  The only person you sought to please from that moment on was yourself.  You would live with this curse of hostility and resentment until the day when someone worthy and dedicated to melting your heart of ice came along.  But until that day you would live a life of solitude and malevolence - alone, trapped in the dungeons of your mind, seeking revenge wherever and whenever possible on all those who have wronged you.  Living this life void of compassion would keep you strong and spare you from the wretched pain you had let yourself endure for far too long.  It would make you feared...powerful.  But with power comes a new kind of pain...