In the days when men still believed the soul could be weighed and measured, the elders told of a secret truth: that the heart was not a gentle vessel of love, but a restless beast.
It stirred in the chest with the hunger of wolves and the cunning of serpents. It longed, it raged, it betrayed. When a man wept, it was the heart clawing at its prison bars; when he fell to desire, it was the heart gnashing its teeth at its keeper.
And so the Maker, in His wisdom or in His fear, built for us a cage of bone. Each rib a bar, each joint a lock. A fortress to contain the monster that would otherwise consume its bearer.
But sometimes on nights when the moon was sharp as a scythe and silence carried too far one could hear it. The sound of hearts rattling their cages, yearning to break free. Some cages held fast. Others cracked. And in those who broke, the monster was loosed upon the world: a man driven to ruin, a woman undone by longing, a life set aflame by passions no ribs could bind.
The elders warned the children: Guard your cage well. For though the heart is yours, it is not your friend.
And so we walk among one another, smiling through our bars, carrying beasts that growl in silence our hearts, monsters waiting for the day the cage grows weak.
