Our hearts are monsters, that's why our ribs are cages—

Bone bars built to hold the wild thing beating,

The creature that would devour whole cities

If we let it loose upon the world.
Behind these ivory prison walls

It thrashes with each pulse,

Clawing at the spaces between,

Hungry for what it cannot name.
Some days I feel it growing stronger,

Testing the limits of its cell,

Pressing against the architecture

That keeps us civilized and safe.
What would happen if the bars bent wide?

If this feral thing broke free

To prowl the streets of daylight,

Leaving chaos in its wake?
Perhaps we'd finally understand

Why evolution locked it up—

This beautiful, terrible beast

That loves too hard, wants too much,
Dreams too big for any body

To contain without breaking.

So here it stays, behind the ribs,

Our monster, our salvation.