Listening To The News Poem by Sharon MacLeod

Every day my heart shreds,
pain penetrating like
a dentist’s drill.
My body shudders
like a pond
in an earthquake.

Something keeps me
from disintegrating,
keeps me in place.
Maybe it's gravity.
Or inertia.
Or centrifugal force
that plasters me to the wall
as the floor drops away.

They say....
let your heart be torn open.
They say....
walk into the fire.
I say
do I have to?
Is this what life is?

The agony of the world sears me
and melts my edges.
Every day there is less
to hold on to.

Sometimes I take a day off
from listening to the radio.
Instead,
I float in the silence
and breathe.