journal entry: heartbeat

i’m writing this with my palm pressed to my chest. not because something is wrong, but because something is happening, and because i need proof before i continue. my heartbeat responds to moments the way skin responds to cold. it changes without asking permission. it reacts before i understand why. when i listen closely enough, it feels like proof. proof that what i feel is real, even when it’s too much to explain.

my heartbeat is always different in different moments and places. it echoes in my body, showing it's reflection to my mind. i feel what i feel through my heartbeat and how it makes me act, breath. i love that when i'm feeling something so intense and someone thinks that i'm being dramatic, i can take their hand and press it to my chest, through my heart, and it's enough proof of the intensity because it sometimes feels like insanity, maybe it is, but embracing it as intensity instead of insanity is a lot easier in meaning even though the name sounds similar.

my heart beating and me liking it is extraordinary, i thought about it stopping seven thousand times. i don't usually notice my heartbeat, but sometimes when my emotions are too intense and my heart starts to ache, it becomes too noticeable that i want to get rid of it, rip it off my chest and throw it as far away as possible until it stops beating, or stop it when it is still a part of my body. it sometimes starts hitting my chest a little too hard that i don't know what to do.

sometimes when i feel to much it's almost like my heart is going to get out of mu chest. but i don't know because it also beats hard when i take the stairs to the top floor. however, they feel different. i feel the first one in my heart, or soul. it's ache of love. the second one is through my breath, moving through my body. it's stairs making my breath run out. it feels like there is no cure and my senses are not working, like the world is flat and i'm on top of it and i'm gonna fall soon because i'm too near to the edge, and my senses blur.

i love my heartbeat the most when i'm in love because it's the proof of what i'm experiencing and love is the whole experience.

sometimes when i need proof i press my hand to my chest and feel my heartbeat, and it's the proof that i'm here.

sometimes i wonder if people who feel less intensely notice their hearts the same way. if their bodies speak as loudly as mine does. or if mine is just trying harder to be noticed.

maybe that’s what i’m always looking for. something solid enough to hold onto when everything else feels abstract. my heartbeat doesn’t explain anything. it doesn’t solve anything. it just insists that i’m here, feeling whatever i’m feeling, fully and without apology. and that is enough.

i’m still writing this with my palm pressed to my chest. not because i’m afraid of losing the rhythm, but because i want to stay with it. as long as it’s beating, there is something happening. as long as i can feel it, i know i exist inside my own life.

and that’s the proof.