The thing about love
is that it punches holes in you.
That, you see, is why
it is infinitely more difficult
to truly love
than to simply like.

I myself tend to love
the wrong kinds of people.
I have been punched through
as if I were made for it,
and yet I never seem to hit
hard enough to leave
my own impressions.
Or perhaps it is not that
I have been punched through
at all, but rather that
when you burst
into a thousand pieces
the shrapnel pierced my heart.

I am a mess of it;
you live in the cavity of
my chest, nestled away in
the space between my ribs.
It is a miracle that my lungs
still operate, given how much
of you sleeps in their cradle.

Someone please take
these frayed edges and tie them
to at least give off a semblance
of wholeness.

(The reality is that I have
never been whole,
and you certainly didn't help.)