You carry my heart in your pocket
with your car keys and your pennies
and your business cards.
Heavy as brick, breakable as glass,
there my heart waits
with your pens and your bus pass
and that old stick of gum
you forgot about
with the little bits of lint stuck on it.

You drag your feet up the hill.
The higher you climb, the heavier
my heart.
You could lighten the load.
Just leave it behind. Someday

someone will find it,
dust it off and carry it home.
But you don't do that. You keep it
with you, in your pocket with your phone
and your receipts
and that half-eaten protein bar
you never finished

slowly making your way
up this long, winding path:
step
by
step
to (y)our future