Heart on the Sleeve

I’ve always worn my heart upon my sleeve,

as if letting it show could make life simpler to perceive.

It has been my compass, my shield, my confession,

yet it feels heavier than the weight of any possession.

Every pulse, every ache, every hidden fracture

is visible for all who bother to look.

Yet I have always felt it caged,

behind invisible bars wrought from doubt,

fear, and the incessant hum of what-ifs.

If I were to open the doors,

to let my heart roam unbound across the fields of life,

what would remain?

Would I still recognize the contours of my own soul

without the familiar chains I’ve grown to wear like armor?

The world is not often bright.

It rarely shimmers with golden light.

Even in moments that feel like clarity,

shadows linger along the edges,

stretching longer than comfort allows.

Life moves quietly, steadily, like a slowly ticking clock,

its hands dragging hours and minutes through our fingers,

never pausing, never waiting.

I have always worried about the day it would stop—

the inevitable silence at the center of all motion,

the cessation of rhythm that feels like the end of breathing.

Fear hovers there, always on top,

a vigilant and unyielding sentry.

I am tired of the constant vigilance,

the unspoken wars waged behind closed eyes.

I am weary of fighting for fragments,

for fleeting moments of recognition or relief.

I have learned that longing can hurt more than loss,

that hope can cut as sharply as despair,

and that every step forward carries the weight of everything left behind.

Sometimes I dream of a world

where my heart could beat without restraint,

without the fear that every pulse might shatter what is fragile inside me.

A world where the sky is not an accusation,

where time’s passing does not haunt every decision.

I imagine my heart spilling into the open,

not as a burden to others,

but as a witness to life’s beauty and its pain alike.

Yet even in that imagined freedom,

the cage whispers reminders:

what is safety, what is risk, what is loss,

what remains when the pieces scatter too far to find?

I beg you, do not dwell on the heart I wear so openly.

It is battered, yes, and scarred from countless storms,

but it is not a weapon, nor a plea for pity.

All I seek—truly—is a mind at ease.

A stillness that does not demand justification

for every tremor, every hesitation, every unspoken word.

No longer waging war for one final piece,

I long for the quiet acceptance of what is,

the gentle recognition that life itself is enough,

even with its fractures and its shadows.

I have learned to speak in whispers,

to send my fears into the wind like paper birds,

hoping they will find solace in their flight.

I have learned to fold moments of joy into the corners of my chest,

small and fragile as they are,

because even a flicker of light can outlast the darkest night.

And I have learned—though never fully—that

to live is to balance on the edge between surrender and survival,

between exposing the soul and keeping it hidden,

between wanting love and fearing its weight.

Please, I ask—not for my heart alone,

but for the peace that can be shared,

the understanding that can travel between minds,

that your mind might rest as mine struggles to still.

Do not dwell on the tattered edges of what I carry.

See instead the quiet intention beneath it,

the unspoken wish that we might both find ease

in a world that so often forgets to be gentle.

So I lay my heart bare once more,

not as a warning, not as a plea,

but as a testament:

that even in fear, even in doubt, even in the relentless ticking of time,

there is room for hope.

And perhaps, in allowing ourselves to breathe without restraint,

to imagine without fear,

we can find a stillness that does not belong to the cage,

but to the freedom we carry quietly within.