Being broken open is the gateway to God
Letting creation in, allowing the Divine
Means living from a truly softened heart
And it means letting life have its way

It hurts and it’s physically painful
We tried to fight to keep it closed
There’s only one wild way to live once you’ve been opened
Like a can of sardines and the metal is sliced and the lid can’t be put back on again

There’s no shutting up shop
Backing into oblivion again
Not for an opened heart
Beaten around by life
By what happened

Who I’ve become
What they did
Who they are
And everything else

A heart once opened is like that forever
And maybe that’s what grief is made of

The love becomes fully obvious when the body is removed from our touch
And it’s hard to bare how much we love each other

It hurts to go direct
It pains to be truly and messily intimate
And as we wriggle into this space
Of deep connection
In all it’s Individual and specific glory

We find ourselves
Unseparated
Excruciatingly aligned with life itself
As it sears through us

And wipes us out
At the same time as bringing us to life
As our shell falls away
And we are mushy

Smashed to smithereens
We run the bath
Make dinner
Wonder what our loved ones might like for a Christmas gift
Put the bins out
And carry on

With our broken hearts leaking out love just about everywhere

To hear Justin and Lizzie in conversation about this poem, visit Turning Towards Life, our weekly deep-dives into life’s big questions.

Banner image: Ashkan Forouzani / 112799 / Unsplash