The Heart That Won't Open (For the Sake of Connection)

 The Heart That Won’t Open (For the Sake of Connection)

The heart won’t open when warmth is near,

It opens where there’s nothing to feel but fear.

Not fear of pain, or loss, or shame,

But losing the right to remain the same.

It beats just fine for a song or a scene,

For heroes redeemed and what might have been.

Tears flow easy when stories resolve,

When good beats bad and the plot evolves.

But place that heart among equal men,

No spotlight, no crown, no “better than,”

And suddenly silence fills the chest,

No fire, no tears, no sweetness left.

Because here no one claps, no ending is shown,

No one is special, no one alone.

Here love is demanded without reward,

Here warmth is built, not felt or adored.

The heart resists not hatred or strife,

But surrendering authorship over its life.

It trembles where no emotion appears,

Where choice replaces joy, and faith replaces tears.

So it locks itself tight, not out of spite,

But to guard the self from dissolving outright.

For love of friends costs more than belief—

It costs the self, stripped bare of relief.

And yet, right there, in the hollow and dry,

Where no one feels and no reasons apply,

A space is carved, unseen, unheard,

Prepared for a Light that’s never inferred.

Not warmth that arrives to comfort the soul,

But truth that appears when the many are whole.

And when that heart breaks — not open, but through —

Connection is born, quiet, real, and true.