If I had a million hearts,
they'd all be yours.

But who else will have peace in their palm
When they lay it across
My ribs
At night.

Who else
As they slumber beneath
A blanket of freckles and
Dreaming eyelids,
Will whisper into the dark air
With a gentle cadence of breaths
The particular softness that cradles my heart
And lets me

Close my aching eyes

And rest.

"I tried. I tried. I tried."
A scream so desperate it turns into the grating whine of a whipped dog. The begging in the eyes and the white of gripping knuckles.
"I tried, I promise I tried."
The damage is massive. I cradle the shoulders of the full-grown man in my left arm, my right hand hovering helplessly across where half his body used to be. It's too much. He's shaking, trying to pull himself into my chest, based on the feel of his hands. I find his eyes. He's begging, repeating himself with agonizing desperation. I grip his face firmly in my right hand, smearing blood and sweat. The pressure on his jaw slows his words and he is staring at me with the deep-eyed trust of a loyal hound, sinking into the promise of my unwavering gaze.
"You did well," I murmur, giving his head a gentle shake to emphasize my words. I blink to clear the pooling in my eyes. His mouth is open, slack, but he tries a smile. He is choking. On bone or blood, something I cannot see. His legs **** convulsively, but he doesn't seem to notice. He keeps my eyes. I gently rock his head with my hand and his eyes grow absent. His legs grow still.
I weep into his mangled chest.

As we spoke and I
found myself safe in your eyes
I suddenly saw
what you have given me

His hands link with mine,
our arms create a matching line,
his patterned lightly by freckles,
and we're sitting on the
summer porch at dusk.

He loves me.

but only because
you showed me the secret
I had kept from myself:

that my eyes can see into souls
my laugh can turn hearts
my smile can make blood race.
that my words, my thoughts, my loves
and hate, my
passion and fire and tears,
my temper and my gentleness,
my utter ridiculousness and
my absolute
poise,
my total seriousness
and surprising propensity
for laughter,
my complex flaws and nuanced perfections,
that I,
me,
everything I am and all
I will ever be
is worth something.

And could be someone's everything.

This is the secret you have pulled
from the depths of my maybe not-so-broken soul,
cupping it in the careful curve of your hands,
holding it out to me,
fragile like a newborn but growing stronger
all the time.
And I'll take it in my nervous palms
and the warmth will fill me
and I will live like new
because of this precious truth that only
you
could have extracted
from the labyrinth
of a deep and winding heart,
that only you could have known well enough
cared for deeply enough
to traverse the dark passages long enough
to find
my lonely light.

Whoever said kisses
taste like sugar

has
either
no experience

or no imagination.

pressing the tight muscles of my shoulders
hard against the stillness of the air

leaning into the melody and out of it again

my fingers not unlike grasping claws
trying to pull music from
a dead thing
that does not love me
the way
it used to.

you have robbed me of my music,
of the words that would
flow in elegant waves from my willing fingers,
refreshing as water but not nearly as
cliche.

the melodies
that raised the veins in my neck
when i spoke them to the mirror
and the windshield,
that left me breathless
heart pounded
half-smiling
into the beautiful vortex of my
spired mind.


they're gone now.


and i'm left with a dead horse slung across both shoulders
and an albatross
around my neck.

You
Are beautiful.
You
Are funny.
You are dynamic, and nuanced.
No one knows how to see the world
The way you do.

You don't give yourself
Credit.

You don't think you're
Worthy
Of good things.

You believe,
And heaven forbid these words,
But you believe
(Whether in some immense degree or a smaller, subtle way)
That you
Are
Worthless.

Oh, my beauty.
Oh, my dazzling darling.
You are more than you think.
You are so much more
Than you have let yourself
Become.

It's not too late.
Drop those weights,
Those heavy, dark thoughts.
And remember who you knew you were when you were too young to lie to yourself.

You are amazing.
You have flaws and they
Are wonderful.
You are not a magazine.
You are not a Barbie doll.
You are you.
And that is what makes You
So very, very
Perfect.