Johannes Punkt’s Flaskpost

You may be required to show proof of id.

Tag: broken heart

23/Dec/2013

A Certain Kind of Lie

There is a certain kind of lie. I know, I have a long list of specific mendacity, and this is yet another one. This lie is one that two humans say to each other when something ends, and they mean it at the time. As the days, weeks, months go by they hear it again, and reinterpret it, and something bubbles up that was there the whole time: they never meant it, in their heart of hearts.

I said, “for a while”. You nodded. I still mean it; give me time. I hope that was not one of these lies.

Leave a comment
1/Jun/2013

Routine Appointment

Once a week, every week, you head down to the tattoo parlour to get my name removed from your chest. The tattoo guy has long since stopped bothering to tell you that there’s nothing there. Those five letters are clearly still there, with the jet black of an industrial printing press, still smelling fresh. Your heart is nothing but scar tissue by now. You attempt to chat with the guy, but it rings false even in your tone-deaf ears. He suggests that if my name is still there in a week, you should consider writing something else over it instead.

Leave a comment
4/May/2013

Aching for You to Eclose

You were a nervous kid in winter; not anymore. You have wrapped yourself in so many layers of protective silk that you can’t breathe. You won’t let me in, you won’t let anything out. You think your heart is a cocoon, but you failed biology quite catastrophically and one day your chest will hatch. A million moths will escape you and as long as their wings beat your blood will pump, sure, but the moths belong to everyone who was ever nice to you. Every time someone dies, your pulse will slow. And I am waiting for spring to come.

Leave a comment
17/Apr/2013

Heartbreak

The loudest sound ever recorded in human history was accompanied by the pitiful whimper of broken china and the soft, carressing hush of a slammed door; Philip Raeburn’s heart had been broken. There was one sharp pang that travelled with the wind until it was finally shouted down by the roaring ocean. An aeroplane or two were lost in the struggle. From the various reports of windows crashing in and the timestamps on broken recording devices we can calculate the precise moment, down to the microsecond, if so needed. Hearing never returned to normal after that, nothing else did either.

Leave a comment
12/Apr/2013

Clockwork Smile

I’m a smile that smiles too wide, a frown that frowns too deep. Do you ever feel like you are made out of nothing but broken parts? Little veins that are too quick to burst, skin cells oversensitive to allergens, a pathetic mind that just takes on the characteristic of the weather you can see out through the window. And you try so much to be more than the sum of your parts, but you’re a little clockwork robot which, if wound up, falls apart. A heart that never really comes unstuck, a clenching fist that never really lets go.

1 Comment