you're so brittle
sometimes I feel stronger than that
but you make me seem like some
stained glass window in the belltower
of a church, you don't want to touch me
for the sake of a metaphor you heard once--
but I won't collect dust on your mantle
to satisfy your mirror tropes and sweet,
sweet, nothings.

that's exactly what they are, right? more than
once i've peeled back the ***** of a wound just
to make a point, to emphasize a passion, only to be met
with *is that any way to live? As if you were accosting me
in the street for the birds in the trees or dirt in the cracks
as if you were saying is that any way to be you?
I don't know, is it? Bare your heart! you tell me,
and I do, I bear it.