April Poetry: Failure

Poem #4 for National Poetry Month

This poem was written before I received my first heart transplant on January 6, 2006, which means this was probably first drafted in late 2004. You can hear the sadness, but also the sarcasm.

My heart failure occurred abruptly following the finalization of my divorce, a year after the death of my grandmother who raised me. It seemed like my heart broke itself out of loss.

This was originally published in Blue Villa Magazine.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Failure
By Dawn Levitt
I have heart failure, they say.
The muscle worn out.
They blame a virus, but I know the truth.

Misused, abused, it’s merely on strike.
Unwilling to be risked 
on one more affair.

No longer to be worn upon my sleeve – 
a blood red blossom,
fraying at the edges.

Too many burnt offerings on the altar of love.
Too many poisoned daggers
stabbed with an adoring hand.

Stricken with a disease, an old crone’s ills,
and me a young woman, 
still fertile, still ripe.

All the more bitter to swallow the pill.
Young flesh, old heart,
dying inside a youthful shell.

How fitting instead – no life, no love.
Who ever said you couldn’t 
die of a broken heart?


Originally published Blue Villa Magazine December 2023