Beating heart

short prose I am working on :)

I was missing my heart when I woke up one morning and thought, if I was a beating heart, where would I be? There are some easy answers, like perhaps in a jazz musician’s metronome or inside of a heavy, lush, August strawberry. Inside a restlessly loving home. I tried holding an ear to the ground to hear a thump, even an irregular one. There are other places to find a beating heart, like below a bewitched girl poet’s strong shoulders, unfortunately, I didn’t know any when it went missing. I searched inside boys’ bedrooms and cars, under their feet. I searched inside of pretty girls’ soft hands, and nothing. My heart could be anywhere.

Of course, I could have left it behind in a dream or inside the glovebox of a teenage car. If I needed a beating heart today, would I have to reach into a drunk dancer’s heart, would I have to create one anew? Did the heart go missing instantly, leaving a void, or was it withering slowly? If I needed a beating heart today, would I be able to find one? Come to think of it, my heart may not even be untouched. Lions could be tossing it around a circle, taking shameless meaty bites, wishing they had something tastier, more filling. For when my heart was lost, it became part of the world, it was not mine anymore. It didn’t have my name or a “return to owner” phone number on it. Any heart in the world could be mine, as long as I’m holding it. 

Any heart, even if I feel it’s beat for just a few counts. If each body with a missing heart looked for its own, the one they were born with, we’d be staring at the ground forever, missing the moments we could feel once again. So, I looked in the river and saw a mother duck with her children. The rocks beneath the surface steadily held their beat as a duckling veered right while the rest of the family stayed to the left. My father saw the duckling and laughed. I felt the ducklings' heartbeat for a couple of seconds before it disappeared around the corner. I was too afraid to touch the water, to make it last longer. Any heart in the world could be mine, as long as I witness it.