I have had bits of my heart taken,
pinched tight between greedy fingers
and shining white incisors
just to be squandered between cold sheets
and walls without windows.

I have given small pieces of myself
in a subtle show of willing naïveté
only to watch them wilt and die
without patient hands to tend to them.

I have lost so many essential parts
that there's not much left to give-
everything is mathematical
and there is no pain in letting go.
I am an expert in the field of
cool, calculated detachment.

But then there was you.
you came padding in softly,
asking for nothing,
taking nothing.
I gave you only
what I had the strength to,
and for the first time,
I could see the pieces
blooming and thriving
as they crawled over the trellises
of your wandering heart.

The empty spaces fill
with shadows of your voice
and a glimmer of your eyes
when you're smiling

and for the first time,
I am whole.