Love is greater than heart hurt

I have so much to say today and no way to say it, at least no way to say it well. Every time I try to compose my thoughts it comes out sounding scattered like I'm stumbling over my words at every step. It's been a rough couple of days. Yesterday I had to go to the hospital for work, and gawd how do I hate the hospitals. It seems that ever since mama died I can't be in a hospital without reliving her illness, I suppose it's only natural. Yesterdays hospital visit didn't call to mind my mother though, yesterday I visited the hospital sissy was in the time she cut too deep. I'm walking those halls recalling my sick little sister and it makes my heart hurt. Yesterday I went out to lunch with the man I love, pressing ever forward through this bittersweet mess we've made. I savor every moment we're alone together, every meaningful stare, every stolen kiss like all the sweetness of every forbidden fruit, gawd do I savor him. Alas does our conversation always turn to why we can't be together. I hate this part. His words tell me no, but his lips say yes when they're pressed so gently against mine. His reasoning turns me away but his eyes draw me back in. I'm listening to his voice say every word I don't want to hear and then his hands reach out to hold mine across the table and I have no sense of what he's saying anymore. All of my senses fall out except the sensations in my hands which feel soft and warm and oh so safe in his embrace. Then we go our separate ways and it makes my heart hurt.
Today full of the hurt in my heart I trudged to the stomping grounds of my youth, that accursed little avenue I love. I plan to engage myself in some good old fashioned retail therapy and shop until I feel better. I pass by the bars and the burger joints and the tattoo parlors and post up in the used book store. I peruse the titles for hours and leave feeling more despondent than ever. I want to curl up with a good book and find in it the comfort I once did but no such book presents itself. I want to be inspired by a book to write a thousand beautiful words but all I feel gazing at all those books is apathy, and a sense that there are too many words already in the world for mine to ever mean anything. I feel small and meaningless before those books which are everything and nothing as well, and it makes my heart hurt. I stop in a thrift store where the clothes are all too small and the shoes are all too big. I make my way to the cafe. Book or no book I want to settle in to a good cup of coffee out on the patio. Lack of inspiration aside I feel compelled to write about the hurt in my heart. It starts to rain. I want it to pour hard cleansing rain, the kind that leaves your soul feeling refreshed but this rain is not that kind of rain. I sit out in the drizzle for a while, sipping an iced coffee and smoking. I wonder what to do with myself now, now that retail therapy has failed me. I feel unsatisfied and alone. On my way to the car I stop at a jewelry store, remembering nothing is so pleasing as something shimmery. I purchase a small silver ring which sparkles when the light hits it just right. I think of how he told me once that he loves the canvas that is my whole body. I pause to reflect on the art I make of my appearance. I smile when I think of how beautiful I feel before his eyes. I laugh when I think of how the simplest things can make us smile. As I'm driving home my heart still hurts but it seems to be getting better. I settle in to do some writing. As I write I exchange words back and fourth with my man. With only the slightest reluctance he admits to his love for me and my heart feels soothed at once. Love eases the hurt in my heart, as simple as that. It always has and I imagine it always will.