And when they leave, it's godless in the dark.

One of my favorite bodily sensations is something that I've come to call "heartbreak in the gut." Like a lot of things, I'm not sure what this says about me, since, as the description implies, it's not an entirely happy sensation. It feels a bit like negative g - force, just under the ribs, just for a moment. Sort of. What it's really like is like feeling heartbreak, but in your gut.

I guess one of the reasons I like it is because I don't think I've ever felt it as a direct result of something that has actually happened to me. It's in some ways, an empathetic, voyeuristic sort of sensation. I'm most likely to get it while I'm reading a book, or watching a television show, or listening to a song. It comes right as one character says something terribly cruel to another, or when someone sings a lyric of perfect sad beauty. It's ... basically romanticism, manifested physically.

I don't know what it sounds like, but trust me, it's a lot nicer than the feeling that resides in the chest. It's a little warmer, a little safer.

A great source of this sensation is a song I discovered recently. It's a song by a band called The Floors, or The Pelvic Floors, or something like that. Don't Google it. They barely exist. This song was co-written and co-performed by Katell Keineg, a singer-singwriter that I learned about from reading the New York Times Magazine. Seriously. I wouldn't say that it's my favorite song by any means, and it took me a while to really love it. The fact that it's called something silly like "Love Song To My Guru" didn't help, either. But I do now. The lyrics are what got to me. If you're a visitor to the WD, I'll tell you that this is what has been in my bio the past few months. I think they're wonderful. They make my heart break in my gut.

I wanna write a love song to my guru
What can I say
That hasn't already been said
To your face?
I wanna write a heart-rending love story
To bring you to tears
What does it matter
If you never hear?

Batten down the hatches
This will never happen again
But they come in glory, don't they?
And when they leave
It's godless in the dark

I appreciate that "they" is left subjective.