muchness

my heart springs up at times, scaring me, with all its desire. i look at it curious, inspecting it & exploring it, with all of its muchness.* the different lives it wants to live and all the people it loves and longs to love.

it spends so much time asleep that when it wakes up it shocks me, the electricity of longing & hope course through, & i stroke it like a mother comforting a child saying "it will all be okay" because i know what my heart does not:

if the desires go unfulfilled,
& surely some will,
& if even the fulfillment doesn't satisfy the way my heart thinks it will,
then what will my heart do?
could it possibly still hope?
or will it,
inevitably,
sink into the cynical reality
that nothing is as it should be
& life isn't fair.

dear heart, you want too much & wake up far too little.
my only prayer can be in disappointment you remain soft
& maybe, against all odds, don't lose your muchness.


*That's how my heart is, I thought—
It lies coiled inside of me, asleep,
then springs out and shocks me
with all of its muchness.

-Tony Hoagland