Harden Heart By LC DeVine@

Cultural forbidden pleasure,

split from conception,

already not fully a part of.

Wildflower plucked and given,

yet rejected by life’s first love,

planted the seed of unloved.

Painful tears watered the first layer 

around the life-giver.

The first love’s yells, screams, and beatings

watered the second layer.

Hurt and damaged, but still wanting love’s approval.

Searching for love in the wrong places.

Innocence ripped by a neighbor’s lust,

saved by man’s best friend.

Darkness grew and the layers thickened.

Only a youngster, running from shadows

only to discover the same pain in a trusted half-brother.

The scales harden around the heart.

So much trauma from the drama.

Chasing a falsehood in gangster love.

Under the scales, only a chameleon trying to protect

the sensitive nature life bore him with.

Burden with issues a young child should never face.

Covering the wounds of unloved with people-pleasing

in the hope of gaining first love’s approval.

But never will, because that love, don’t love, nobody!

Self-hatred hardens the heart.

Isolated from the world, tormented in body and mind.

Seeking answers: Why? What? How Come Me?

And Who Am Eye?

Repetitive questions that lead to madness.

Running from divine order, unable to see – Purpose!

Like a trained greyhound, 

upon the firing of the gun, and the swinging open of the gate.

Chasing the devil’s white ice,

jumping into the hole 

clever as a fox,

but stuck like Brer Rabbit.

Finally, face down in tears like King David. 

Crying out to the Holiest of the Holy.

Who answers, “I Got You!”