Dale Lloyd

A broken heart, the poets say, is never out of style.

Subtly it’s hiding just beneath the plastic smile.

We save our crying for the rain,

and medicate to dull the pain.

The faces passing through the park

sunlit by day yet shadowed in the dark.

And who their stories dare to tell,

and walk with them into their hell?

We chase the light, the easy cheer,

and hush the truth we most revere.

For every masterpiece of art

was born, not on the mountaintop,

but in a broken heart.

The poets and the singers know—

their voices tremble, soft and low.

They cut through all pretense and shame,

and in their cry, we hear our name.

They teach us to embrace our pain—

to let it run its course.

In doing so, the heart

still bleeds—but with a healing force.