After the matter, he said he saw it like an old black-n-white
because I had said I loved Cary Grant films.
But I know now that he couldn’t have possibly
because he told me he hated classics.
We stood three baby steps away from each other
on that beautifully manicured stretch of green.
He smiled so widely and wildly,
seeing as if through a sleeping gas dream haze,
I, ever cautious, looked with clear, hard blue eyes
and scrutinized and analyzed until
the grass was jaded green and the blue sky
was smudged with laundry grey clouds.
He told me excitedly, in what he assumed
was a lover’s pur, that he had something for me.
I thought the tone was an aggressive command
and I snapped my eyes back from the splotch
of mud from my boots, and was horrified to find
that I was now a mile away from him.
How’d I end up here, and why didn’t he notice
I wasn’t where he was? When I asked after the matter,
he said with venom that he assumed I would follow,
like I always did.

He had pulled from his pocket a beating pink heart
and stretched his arm out to me, but I shook my head.
I can’t reach it from here, I really tried to let him hear.
I am no where ready to take that!
But he smirked with older superiority,
a grin I had come to loathe,
and brought his arm back behind his head,
like a veteran pitcher at the mound, and followed through.
But he was never in baseball, he was a speech kid in high school,
he didn’t know how to throw, and the wind picked up
that little pink heart like a paper plane.

I tried, I really did. I ran until my lungs ignited
with blood, pumped my legs until the muscles
fell off, strained my hands and fingers forward until they were as long
as red oaks in an ancient forest.
But it wasn’t enough. I was still thousands of feet
away from catching the weak little ball of emotion,
because I hadn’t played ball since I was fifteen.

The delicate little heart landed in this thick brown mud puddle.
On such a lovingly cared for lawn, why was there
a huge-*** mud pond?!
I frantically waded in to try to and help it.
When I found it, the heart was contentedly
sitting in the mud as if it had landed in
a warm kettle of chocolate.
I was sad to see it so easily mislead, and knew I had to return
because I knew I couldn’t clean this little bruised ******.

As gently as I knew how, I eased it out of the mud,
and stoically walked back to the boy
who had so carelessly thrown his heart.
Unfortunately, the grass was slicker than i thought,
and the sun was in my eyes, and I guess
I’m just clumsier than I thought, so about five steps away
I tripped and dropped the fragile little heart.
As the tender pink thing landed, finally it
and he noticed the state everything was in.
He looked down at the banged, muddy heart
and I watched in fear as his eyes filled up.
With quiet misunderstanding he asked
how could this happen? Why did you do this?

I must admit, I just can’t do displays of emotion,
so I told him I was sorrier than words could say
and as iron bars of guilt began to pile along my shoulders,
I turned 180 degrees away from him.
I felt his hand reach for me, but all he could grasp
was my rustling skirt, and I couldn’t bare to see him,
so I sprinted forward and let my dress rip to flowing shreds.

The air from his screams helped pushed me into a flight.
The sooner I disappeared, the sooner he’d take notice of his heart,
I kept telling myself this, praying for this.
After the matter, when I asked what he saw,
all he said was a pretty girl that dropped his heart at his feet,
and step on it, smeared it with her ***** boots.
I deserved the harsh words, I do know that.
This is no plea for the girl that broke your heart,
but did you ever think she might have really tried,
and it isn’t completely her fault? Sometimes she’s
afraid to see your name on her phone
because she can’t bare to see the beaten heart
she just couldn’t save.