Sense of Decency

Bleeding Heart

By DEBRA ROSE BRILLATI

The very idea
that someone thinks
calling me a bleeding heart
is an insult
is at the heart
of our inability
to understand one another.

If my heart did not bleed
for the pain of others
if it did not boil
hot inside my chest
at the sight of a child
being separated from her mother
if it did not send thick blood
rushing pulsating throbbing
to fill my head with
a deafening static
at the news of shots
ringing out in a sacred place

Then I would wish my heart
simply
to stop.

Because after all
what is the alternative
to a bleeding heart?

One made of stone?
or ice?
or paralyzed
by a hard shell of hatred?

My heart may bleed
but it continues to beat
and as long as it does …

I will bind up my wounds
so I can tend to the wounds of others
I will get close enough to the cold-hearted
so that my heart’s warmth
might melt their own
I will cushion the landing
as others fall on hard times
so that hearts of stone cannot crush them.

Yes, I am proud of my bleeding heart.

Maybe I’ll even wear it on my sleeve.

From the author:

I wrote “Bleeding Heart” during a time when the news was filled with images of kids in cages, separated from their parents, lying on cement floors, unable to be touched. My heart was already so full from news of daily atrocities, from the stoking of so much hatred, from so many lives lost or destroyed.  

One day, I pulled a T-shirt from my drawer. I had purchased the black shirt at a recent talk by John Pavlovitz (author of the blog “Stuff That Needs to be Said”). On the front is a red anatomical line drawing of a human heart and the words: “I’d rather have a bleeding heart than a dead one.” As I pulled on the shirt, I got to thinking about how the phrase “bleeding heart” is so often hurled as if it were an insult. And I was moved to respond.

Debra Rose Brillati received her BA in Literature from Bard College, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University, and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Andover Newton Theology School. She is enrolled in a 2-year Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. She lives in Auburn, NY, and is involved with the Social Justice Collective, Celebrate! Diverse Auburn and the Harriet Tubman Boosters. She is a certified spiritual director and a lay pastoral minister at St. James Episcopal Church in Skaneateles, NY.