You are a grave digger.

Exhuming the heart I thought dead.

It was entombed like a love buried in the backyard of my essentia.

I dug it low with  pain a shovel

Deeper and deeper till I could not see the light.

Piled the dirt down the pit to a heart that could not become more soiled.

It did not matter you put your ear to the ground that night and listened intently

You didn't have a shovel you only had those patient hands.

You got on all fours and began to excavate clawing in the ground with quiet determination

A smile creased across the face as the muck caked your clothes but it did not ***** that spirit.

I thought you lost in the depths to claim a prize I tried to hide.

Then there you were a grin from ear to ear and a tender thing held in just one palm.

I froze uncertain as each step brought it closer.

You simply dusted it off and handed back the heart like a old hat I had lost.

I tried it on for size again and felt the familiar weight of it.

It still felt a burden but that look in your eyes made me believe that I could bear it

you use your body as a weapon against me

I don't find it endearing when you sear me with your touch

You hold my hand that makes me chafe like manacles clasped too tight so I won't escape.

You unload clip after clip tearing me open till I hear you go click click

Even Your words flood my space like a toxic cloud as our relationship deepens into trench warfare.

My life was a peaceful meadow till it met the tread of your boots

You close the distance with a knife a last desperate attempt to win a war and strike down the last of my will.

We were never soldiers. All these words just metaphor. I step outside and simply shut the door.

You are an atomic bomb as you lay wasted in the couch my grandmother wanted me to have.

The shockwave blows me back to the past to cross stitch and conversations about getting hitched to the innocence of the boy next door.

She checked out 3 years ago and the year that followed saw you check in.

A modern marvel guaranteed to end my worlds internal struggle.

I soon learned bombs aren't made for saving and you scorched me worse than any ******.

I stare at you the fallout; My Fat Boy

The only time I want to look back is to make sure no one fell behind.

We all have value and so I work down the line

Count the people by their names and not by number

See their face with all my sight one at a time every individual.

Spread kind words to each just to catch a smile and to keep lit their eyes

Embrace with abandon amongst the masses not huddled but held.

One in many we find more strength when we hold together

You are the only wind through hell.

The gentlest of caresses a cool embrace that warms without heat.

The only Deviation from an existence with little alleviation.

Closest thing I can feel to joy in this place.

Were you stronger you could ******* from here.

Alas I am no kite and must walk out on my own accord.

I Cut and Cut to shred away the skin I wore when I was with you.

I tear away the time we’ve had to find the me before you.

Find the old cloth under all the patches you placed over me.

You thought you were fixing me
By covering the holes, the tears, the tatters. Those were me ; my loves my losses, my memories.

By Friends and family I will piece together a new self. They will be the stitches that put me back together and hold me as a reborn whole.

The quilt made by my hand,  held together by my choices. will be all the warmth and comfort I will ever need.

Through virtue and vice I am who I am.

I've come to know the truth of who.

I see sooth in self and speak no deceptions.

I have shed my doubts mind free of their clout

Reborn of my own accord no one to claim me as theirs

I've left all the baggage at the station to conduct this life by a lighter load

Worth of mine that shall not break to another.

Self not to be carelessly given to be lost by an unguarded guest.

One known better is all I've ever needed