They don’t tell you that part
of your heart dies when you
have a heart attack. It’s
something you end up reading
in a book. They don’t know
that parts of my heart are
already dead and I am carrying
little corpses in the hollow
of my chest. They tell me that
things will go back to normal,
that kids are still an option,
to just take it easy for a while.
They don’t know that I have
nothing to return to, that I will
take soft, hesitant steps to the
side of my bed and hope that next
time, there’s no one around to
pull me out from drowning. They
roll me out in a wheelchair to
my parents, my friends, tell them
to take care of me. I will learn
to live with one tenth of a heart.
Taylor Emily Copeland is a poet from Eastern Pennsylvania. Her poems have recently appeared in Hobo Camp Review, Thick With Conviction and Chantarelle’s Notebook. She is a four time Best of the Net nominee and also was nominated for Best of the Web. She reads obsessively, likes pink things, drinks too much coffee, drives aimlessly and falls in love too easily. She is unashamed of all of it.
Categories: Poetry
Tags: depression, e-zine, ezine, heart attack, hyperbole, longing, melancholy, melancholy hyperbole, new, One tenth, poem, poet, poetry, poets, submit, Taylor Emily Copeland, writing
Melancholy Hyperbole 
Really beautiful.