I make the incision now, split the skin with a scalpel.
In its white cage it stirs; I extract it carefully, fluttering against my bloody palm.
Fear has quickened it, the fledgling trembles for escape, fleeing new emotions.
Fragile vivisection awaits.
A search for what is missing in that which is complete.
I wonder where to pin you.
Or leave your calming eyes, your soothing voice by the wayside. In the grass verge beside my train of thought, and fronds of smoke will race me a thousand miles away from dreams of your affirmation.
In this misty mirror, I could write words that tap against my teeth, secrets that seep beneath my tongue. Raindrops will wriggle down the wet pane and I’ll divine them, until the blindness of your breath erases them with clouds of lung-warm life, unread.
I’ll strew the sandy acres of my hourglass before your feet; pray that time will trace the trail of your footprints toward me.
This tiny beating miracle in my clasp has an owner, has a tiny wound bleeding freely.
Its only scar.
A jagged shard is needed here, a foreign broken bravery.
I’ll give this heart to that one, set it in their sober care for healing, to them that makes me unafraid to die. Stitch it to the dappled wings of they who can staunch me against a final, helpless snuffing out.
What it needs is a jigsaw piece, an opposite, a completion. But all I see is a mirror, a maybe, a for-now.
And as I lean so hairsbreadth close and steam the glass between us, breathing my pulse toward you; slick a love letter upon the window that you will not take, for you do not look to see it.
The bird in my ribs quivers for the first time, but it does not fly free.
For until it is from you,
It is not for me.