Psychology and the social sciences are too in love with their own sophisticated terminology within their own scientific-tinged aspects to recognize what most people rather crudely refer to as a “broken heart.”
The heart is the most important thing in existence, but science sees it either as an organ that pumps blood or a valentine shape of mere sentimentality. But broken hearts do exist, and the heart that is broken is real, and the sciences “of the heart,” psychology, the social sciences, the whole of the humanities, in fact, is but a square shape of no consequence compared to—and there is no other way of saying it—the human heart.
What is the heart?
The heart can only be described as that which escapes breaking—or does not escape this fate.
There is no greater tragedy than a broken heart, and yet it often happens—because it happens to the heart—without the world noticing.
It happens to many in high school, or in college, or right after college; someone—who may not even intend to do it—breaks your heart, and the heart that never stops giving suddenly stops giving—the innocence of the child—who wonders and loves—is no more.
The heart, once broken, never really heals, and the broken-hearted soul tries, but never quite loves again. They have an organ which pumps blood, but they no longer have a heart. They cannot love. They are wary of true love. They call true love impossible or naive. Lack of trust or paranoia is the symptom of the heart—which belongs to a soul—that is broken.
For the broken-hearted, belief in love fades like the stars in the face of routine day.
Can the broken-hearted write poetry?
No, they cannot.
The broken-hearted do everything to relieve their pain; they stupidly meditate, they thrill to cheap entertainment, habits become a narcotic, they drink, they laugh, they retreat from the world, they take poetry classes, they get Ph.D.s, they explain, they make money, they have affairs. But the broken heart, even amid the laughter, hangs on like an odor. It never goes away.
And those rare few, those happy few, those poets whom the world praises?
They are the fortunate souls who miraculously managed to miss, by pure luck or innocence, the most terrible of fates—the broken heart.
There is only one thing you must resist, if you feel there is hope for your heart, for your capacity to love: when you look in the face of the rare poet who smiles serenely—who smiles from the heart, for the sole reason that it feels good to smile—do not envy them. Smile back with your heart. Have no thoughts but good ones. Stay in that place for minutes, for hours, for days, for years.
