if anything hurts

by

at some point a stranger or perhaps a friend you once 
let drift away will tell you to stop caring so much, 
as if caring were a disease that needs to be cured, or
a workman's machine you can switch on and off as you 
please. don't be so quick to agree. say your heart has
no dial to turn from left to right; say your heart did
not come with a remote control, did not even come with
an instruction manual or the number of a helpline you
can call when it isn't functioning the way it should.
tell the truth: that sometimes you are nothing more
than skin and sweat and sinew, and sometimes you are
so much. tell the other truth, the bigger one: that no
one——not with our breath and veins and the songs that
keep us up at night——was meant to temper the swirling
and shifting within, that no one was ever born to love 
moderately.