Heart Shaped Box

I used to think God gave me an extra helping of feeling and emotions.  I could cry at anything and everything.  Sad stories, happy stories. Television shows, commercials, you name it.  I felt for people.  I loved, And I loved hard.

I still get emotional.  Sometimes.  Usually for the wrong reasons, so I have learned to shut it off.  Call it practicing being like a man.  I think I have gotten too good at it. 

I feel like I have learned to shut out any potential of anyone getting in.  I have emptied my heart of any feeling at all and carefully wrapped it up tight. Shrinkwrapped it so no air gets in, no light gets in, nothing can hurt or harm it at all. 

My head and my heart aren't communicating very well at all.  Instead of agreeing that we are fine and don't need anything or anyone my head believes it is possibly in love and is launching a full out assault on my heart.  

My heart in turn is doubling its efforts to be safe from harm, burrowing deep down, unyielding to the signals of my brain to actually feel and beat again.  My heart is too tired to try. It tried for years and years to love only to be rebuked and rejected so its not buying my brains story.

I went to a psychic once. As a whim with a friend and she told me I was closed off, that my heart was closed off to love and  I needs to open up.... Well duh lady, I know this. I'm fully aware of this and there's good reason.

It's not that I don't want to love someone, I do. It's that my heart is too tired to let someone in and them just be crushed again. I fear if it happens one more time it may never recover and truly just be that Heart Shaped Box that sits in my chest, empty and devoid.....