SHAKESPEARE'S BROKEN HEART
KRISTEN HARRIOTT
It's a funny thing, the connection between
being smart and being sad.
I think it stems from
the mind unconsciously
seeking out an other half ;
with such intelligence comes
a loneliness.
It is why Van Gogh ate yellow paint — took
its bitterness in hopes to change
his own — to be fulfilled and chase
happiness.
Romeo found Juliet and fled away in bliss
wanting the day their families didn't argue to come;
Hamlet merely wanted to avenge his wronged father;
Macbeth wanted a throne to himself--
all forms of happiness, all ending tragically.
And I can't help it as I read through this plays, and signs, and
themes, and rhyming lines that he too had felt it all once.
Although he was great, he was too mortal.
He was, too, mortal.
And too felt the happiness of finding a forbidden love,
righting the name of someone wronged, and
stepping into his destiny, perhaps
lonely, but never alone.
He, too, maybe fell within life's traps and caught
the heart on his sleeve intertwined with another, or
tried on the rose-tinted glasses once or twice. Maybe he
too made mistakes and chased happiness.
But his works were written not by his mind, but by his
heart, exposing another side: one that's broken and
weathered by experienced; one that's formed callouses in
the most over-worked areas and built defenses
to protect the love that is left.
The beauty within the sadness.
Shakespeare's broken heart may be tied and taped
and sewed and scraped but at the end of the day,
always came a new morning: a speck of happiness
within that darkness
teaching us that perhaps it isn't how
battered we are, rather how mended.
We, too, are too mortal.
But just because we're broken doesn't mean
we can't be fixed.
being smart and being sad.
I think it stems from
the mind unconsciously
seeking out an other half ;
with such intelligence comes
a loneliness.
It is why Van Gogh ate yellow paint — took
its bitterness in hopes to change
his own — to be fulfilled and chase
happiness.
Romeo found Juliet and fled away in bliss
wanting the day their families didn't argue to come;
Hamlet merely wanted to avenge his wronged father;
Macbeth wanted a throne to himself--
all forms of happiness, all ending tragically.
And I can't help it as I read through this plays, and signs, and
themes, and rhyming lines that he too had felt it all once.
Although he was great, he was too mortal.
He was, too, mortal.
And too felt the happiness of finding a forbidden love,
righting the name of someone wronged, and
stepping into his destiny, perhaps
lonely, but never alone.
He, too, maybe fell within life's traps and caught
the heart on his sleeve intertwined with another, or
tried on the rose-tinted glasses once or twice. Maybe he
too made mistakes and chased happiness.
But his works were written not by his mind, but by his
heart, exposing another side: one that's broken and
weathered by experienced; one that's formed callouses in
the most over-worked areas and built defenses
to protect the love that is left.
The beauty within the sadness.
Shakespeare's broken heart may be tied and taped
and sewed and scraped but at the end of the day,
always came a new morning: a speck of happiness
within that darkness
teaching us that perhaps it isn't how
battered we are, rather how mended.
We, too, are too mortal.
But just because we're broken doesn't mean
we can't be fixed.