I had resigned myself to the ember wall
around my heart.
Then out of nowhere you came in
and with your shy sweetness
and nervous eyes you lifted me out
of my ashy fortress.

I find warmth in your genuine kindness
that I thought I'd never feel again.

Yet my caution chokes my feelings back
and neither time nor distance
are on our side.

So tell me, gentle boy, what will we be?

What's this?  A small flower petal?
Once part of something wonderful.
Once a fragile, intricate masterpiece.
Now a lowly isolated fragment.
A candle to a flame.
No wait.  That's what's left of my heart.

Were I able to take a scalpel
to my mind
and hack you out entirely,
believe me when I say,
I would do it in an instant.

I'd let that small sad part of me
that still wants you back
and has a heart,
that skips to see you,
drown in the puddle of blood.

Today an eyelash fell on my wrist,
and with my breath it sailed
on a wish.
That my heart will one day be
a little candle flame,
a faint hopeful spark,
to someone just as lost in the dark
as I am.

It had been so long,
years,
since I had creaked
open my heart.

In mere weeks
I slammed it shut
and collapsed in
on myself.

It's in one piece now
I've definitely healed
but there's still cracks
in the stained glass.

I look out from within
my stony cold fortress
when it dawns on me.

As I shattered and fell
in my own pathetic well
in the darkness spun away
that small golden key.

Now trapped I stand
looking out
through the fray
realizing I dropped
the key to my heart
and I don't know if
I can ever
love
some day.

Opening my heart again made me realize
I had lit a disco ball of emotions
sending the best and worst feelings
emanating from within me outward
and in the open; exposed, vulnerable.

I had truly forgotten this sensation
of my own emotions betraying me
and stampeding out of any control
no matter how I try to push them back in
like the wrong puzzle pieces.

There's something kind of terrifying
about what affection does to us.
To go from singing
with newfound joy,
to weeping with
bitter regret,
to daydreaming
a violent solution,
to simply trying
to forget.

Step slowly closer
until our chests
almost touch.

Hover over me
lips parted
twitching into
a slight smile.

Our eyes flutter
between irises
and parted,
inquiring lips.

In that moment our
breathing so shallow
and the silence
so heavy.

Then, mind made,
your arms snake
around me and
pull me in.

You lean down
and our lips touch,
our heartbeats
filling the silence.
You just
******* away.

I want to feel that again.
I want to be breathless.
I want to just
collide
with another person
who feels the same way.