fifth heart

what says you heart to make a face such as this wear such a morbid smile laced with agony? - ben to ben's heart

how many faces can one fit in just one heart?

how many hearts can one really gently touch with and hold in in just one hand?

can love be given not only to one but to many and stay undivided, be not spread thinly and felt equally if accepted freely?  does one not risk of one's own heart being trampled upon not once but also many a times?

at a number of times i have taken such risks.  at present, the maximum number of hearts with names and faces loved by my one heart has a maximum number of four.  once, it had been before my only eternal love came into my life.  and it was just that once.  only once.  for my heart can take pain no more.  not that one or two more cannot be made to fit but that pain cannot anymore be endured. of pain felt by causing pain to the one's own beloved. of pain caused for other's tears to flow. of my heart wrenching theirs when my heart turns its head to the other hearts.

It was a time when the first and the third of the other hearts understood where they belong and tried to help the second heart without that heart's knowing.  a fourth came along but that fourth one also came with the face recognized by my heart by far as the longest known.  One heart aroused feelings one of being needed and wanted, one of cries and forms of passion, one of being helped and accepted, the last of desire and lusts for ventures unknown.  yet their hearts have feelings of their own towards myself and my own heart.  when the fifth was forthcoming my heart's heart knew one truth: he would be the one who stay in him forever even long after my heart starts to forget.

when the fifth came along i really knew that that heart with be the one.  the only one i would truly love with all of my heart and all of my soul.  it was the time i drew those three cards: the four of spades, the jack of hearts and the ace clubs.  as such, the fourth i had to turn away before that heart melts away.  all the other hearts had feared the coming of the inevitable fifth and one truth; all the other hearts knew even before the fifth came that they can be pushed aside for the fifth.  then, the first gave way to the second, nay, weighed by my heart against the third.  soon the second faded against the fifth.  for a time my heart revolved around the third and fifth but by and by my heart's heart's gut feelings apparently were indeed correct. as it should rightly be so.  had it been not i would have gouged it out myself.

yet, with all the love one heart can ever give my heart was bleeding for the other bleeding hearts.  for untying my cords knotted to their hearts.  rivers flowed from my eyes as in theirs from parting when still so much in love. from not wanting to yet to be apart. from wanting never ever to say goodbye.

in a span of a two year period all those hearts laughed, loved and cried along with mine.  After six years i love them all still. Yet, this love now varies in both kind and degree.  They all know me still and our hearts still hold bonds unsevered in the parting of our hearts.

after seven years, the fifth is still the one and the truth then is still true now.  when i'm eighty or ninety he would still be the one.  my forever only true love.  my fifth heart then, my first heart now.  my only beloved son.