A Healthy Heart

Some of us are born
with our hearts on the outside.

We were the children
who cried easily,
made friends even more easily,
laughed and found trouble
each and every day.

A heart unprotected
is so vulnerable,
so raw and so easily inflamed.

Susceptible to sweet songs
and sinister salesman alike,
the naked heart follows
wherever it is led.

Anger and addiction,
despair and depression,
righteous indignation,
all prey on an exposed heart.

No heart,
no matter where it resides
should be exposed
– to the cold,
– to loneliness,
– or to unending lies.

A healthy heart leads
and bleeds with love.
It grows stronger with experience
and more tender with compassion.

The exposed heart is a warrior’s heart.
It knows the sacred,
authors true life in others,
even as it beats in perfect harmony
with the pulse of the eternal universe.

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This poem was written on September 22, 2025.