I Want To Know What Makes Your Heart Beat

Tell me, where does your heart beat?

Does it echo in the dazzling sunlight spilling in through parted curtains, carried on the tail of a breeze dancing with the essence of a burgeoning spring?

Does it thrum in the gentle curvature of written language, beating to the cadence of the story resonating through the very molecular makeup of your bones?

Does it pulse in the sound of water crashing endlessly against sand that slips away, revealing hidden, tragically beautiful treasures beneath?

Does it leap from note to note in the swell of a song, dancing to melodies that echo eternally within it?

Tell me, where does your heart beat?

Can we hear it in you when you speak of the ones you love? Does it sound in the very vibrations of your voice; in the delicate utterance of soft words escaping from your lips? Does it beat in the teardrops that cling to your eyelashes, in the wells of passion that overflow to trace art upon your cheeks?

Does it show itself in a pen grasped between your fingers, scratching across a page and leaving behind lines of ink that may as well be your own blood? Does it beat for the lives you save each day, every thud of it amplified as you hope it will somehow entice the heart before you to follow its example?

Does it beat in the rays of sunlight stretching lazily across the world as dawn emerges, or does it prefer to patter with the rain falling from an obscured sky? Does it beat in the light, liberating laughter of a child, or in the soft whispers of the elderly retelling their tales? Does it beat in the small brushes of a hand on a shoulder, or in long embraces when the world disappears? Does it beat for the world or for only a few people, or just for yourself?

Tell me, where does your heart beat?

Who does it beat for? Tell me what it skips for. Tell me what it quickens for, hummingbird wings inside of your chest. Tell me what makes those wings turn to those of an angel, scooping up your heart and soaring up and up and up, pulling with it endless and unrestrained laughter.

Tell me who and what carries the boulders that get placed atop it, leaving it whole enough, but far too heavy for you to lift with your own beautiful hands.

Tell me whose footprints mar the surface, and whose fingertips have traced their names there; carved in such a way that sometimes they brush against your consciousness, flicking away dust from long-forgotten memories. Tell me whose whispers float in a nimbus around it, their words echoing in the moments of quiet.

Tell me, for I wish for nothing more and nothing less than to see you. Show me why you live.

We have a limited number of heartbeats, and I want to know what each of yours means.