The Heart. String.

Sometimes, late at night, I look at my fingers and I wonder if I didn't live in the age of the birth certificate, if I would know how old I was. I wonder if the lines on the side of my face and the downward sloping of body parts would help in the calculations.

But just when I get out my pen and paper and counting what looks different now than it did in 1999, I always find the wrench in the plan, right here. There's a swelling and a throbbing and I worry that one day it might cause unwanted pain--or that worse yet, one day is, in fact, today.

Somewhere along the way, over these last 12 years, I lost the ability to be my own puppeteer, to speak for myself, to move my mouth back and forward and not let myself be bullied. There is a tear of something in here. Something isn't right and it hasn't been right for sometime. I needed a tissue--both kinds of tissues to fix the problem this time.

I figure that if I could find out when I accepted mediocrity and the ability to go a day without elation, if I could just trace my steps to when I made the wrong exception to what felt right, then maybe, just maybe, I could tell you my age.

All l I know is that I used to be my own muse. And I was the exception. I was good at it. Perhaps it is now that I am a bit dumbfounded in my infinite sorrow.

After all, I may not have a number in mind, but I don't need an abacus to tell me how to break my own heart.