The Shut Up Hearts

Where the towers of metal and glass kiss the sky, there wander a many people who have since been dubbed the Shut Up Hearts. Each day they wander through, each day they are as lost as the day that passed before. They march headlong towards some vague and distant goal, nestled among the lying city lights, which promise that all dreams come true. Too afraid of pursuing the pleasures of the heart, they decided to ground themselves to this life in their work; tedious, dull and repetitive - they convince themselves that this is life, and this is the best it's going to be.

They are strangers not only to each other, but to themselves, for they shade the desires of the heart as well as they shade their eyes from the glory of the sun with their expensive glasses. They don't know how to caress their heartstrings to play a haunting melody, nor open their eyes to a stranger on the street who suffers the way that they suffer. They each hide from themselves; the Shut Up Hearts cannot venture from the prison for which they hold the key, because they believe that they are safe behind its bars. The fear of loneliness keeps them alone.

The trees sigh as they pass beneath them, knowing that they shall all be lost in among the skyscrapers' shadows. To each other they are the Faceless Ones, for they do not open their eyes to see one another, their gazes sliding off and away, the way water slides down glass, leaving it unmarked and untouched. They are ghosts, walking shadows, eyes expressionless and dull, glazed over and looking into a world that is a mere shadow of the one that they refuse to see before them. They trace the same steps in the same way, until the unfamiliar becomes the familiar, the overlooked, and the mind becomes lazy in its observation, noting nothing but the unusual. The Shut Up Hearts wander in dark corridors alone and wonder why they cannot find a way out, when they are at the very threshold of escape, but choose not to use their energy to take that extra step. The buildings of metal and glass know this, and they laugh as they kiss the sky, for they know that they bask in the light which the Shut Up Hearts wish to seek.

One day, they will awaken. One day they shall recognise the glory of the world they live in; one day they will discover that the city lights do not deliver on their promises; one day they will find that the world is not so dull as they have come to believe; one day they will see that they are not as alone as they thought, and that the rest of the world was just waiting for them to wake up.