when hearts are too small

I did not know her before then but her pain made me swallow the lump in my throat. It was palatable how far down it reached inside of her, how it seemed to wrap itself around her organs and the space between her blood vessels. I do not know how she managed to function with those anacondas making a pretzel of her insides. My sadness seemed light and airy after. I was ashamed of my pain. Ashamed of how it did not consume me like hers. How the sun did not seem to taunt me in its brightness, how the screech of birds overhead did not remind me of the sound my heart made when it shattered. I went home to the comfort of my lopsided bed and in the grove between my pillows. I cried in shame, for my heart and for the little pain it had.