Head/Heart Reason/Passion - NaPoWriMo

Sometimes our hearts
or our guts
commit us to a course of action that our brains refuse to follow up with

I think our hearts are the indestructible parts of our beings.
When we sustain wounds,
it's our psyches and our memories that show bruising,
not our hearts.
Our hearts recover quickly.

Your gut told you I was beautiful
and for a brief moment you overrode your inhibitions to tell me so.
Your gut continuously invited me
to what my heart and head could only logically perceive
as a beginning to something.

Our hearts are the home of our imaginations
and our bravery -
our willingness to desire things and take risks.
We often use the protective part of our minds
to manipulate our hearts into believing
that the bravery is frivolous
and that growth and maturity are more careful with emotion.
William Blake wrote that tameable passion is weak,
implying - at least to me - that passion should be
strong and unruly.

Your head told you that my untamed ways -
my lack of inhibition, my free emotion, my willingness -
could quickly and easily bring you pain...

...perhaps the same way hers had.

And I cannot promise that you are wrong.
I cannot be certain
that my willingness to jump head first, heart open
into friendship, intimacy, and love
will not some day cause one of us
to sustain another memory wound.
But I do know this:
Whether it's the naivete of youth
or faith in a Divine type of Universal Truth,
my heart has only grown stronger and braver because of the mental scars.

...that other man's hands pushing a bit too hard,
too far,
despite protests...

…yet another man’s complete inability to see
lips as the gates that freed or withheld knowledge,
his eyes only saw a vessel through which to slake his thirst…

…yet another man who claims to be a friend
but will use and be used
for the type of more-than-friendly benefit
that gives a mind pause before
and emptiness after each time…

I’ve been hurt too.
I get scared too.
But for better or for worse,
This young heart cannot help loving around the scars.

Your gut told you I was beautiful
And reached past your mind to tell me so.
Your protective armor told me no,
And my head can hear you,
But my gut tells me that someday
Your heart will tell your head what it already knows,
That real life requires a willingness
To view the scars as a new tattoo
Depicting the nonverbal elements of you