a heart that's too small

newspaper, newspaper. can't take no more. you're here, every morning, waiting at my door. and i'm just trying to kiss you and you stab my eyes. make me blue forever like an island sky.

-conor oberst, milk thistle

 xxx

my co-worker shares his rolling stone magazines with me. once a month, i come into the office to find an issue waiting on my desk, usually heralding the latest pop culture phenomenon, or new summer album release. two days ago, he shared something different. his newsweek.

and between a feature of rhianna and a never-before-seen interview from liz taylor, there was an article on the war. one single glance and i was done with for the day. because my heart can't take it.

i am ruled by conscience. and purity. when i was younger, and a bad thought would sneak its way into my mind, i would write it down on construction paper and slip it under my mama's bedroom door. sometimes i would be dramatic and circle the place where my tears hit the paper, with an arrow and the words "here is where i cried." because through the act of writing it down, of getting it out on paper, i was subsequently releasing it from my spirit. and until i told someone, i felt awful. guilty. maybe that's why i blog now. to share with you my happiness, yes, but also my demons. my struggles. 

and i internalize things. like the news. like magazine features with awful images unfit to print. and they stay with me and embed themselves so deep into me that i can't distinguish myself from the muddle.

and i'm not naive. i'm not so blissfully happy or innocent that i don't know the terror that's going on overseas. or here in our home country. or one city away from me. some people have big hearts. they give and give and are so beautiful. but sometimes mine feels too small. it's not that i don't care, i just care so fervently that i render myself immobile. and thus ineffective.

so i tucked the newsweek in my office drawer. chiefly because rhianna is splattered on the cover wearing something between underwear and shorts, and i did not think that proper workplace fodder. but also because i know what's inside those pages. and if i ever, ever doubt my ability to feel (as i sometimes do. when the world gets mundane and slow and routine, i become a bit numb), those images will snap me back.

back to a world that is scary. overwhelmingly so. but also fluid. and for every terror there is a beauty. and it's easy to hide away. to squirrel myself in my room. my car. my office. but there's a God pouring sunlight  through my windows right now, glaring up my screen and reflecting off my arms. and He instructs me to push forward through the murk. because He has a handle on situations that i can't touch. and that's good news.