Your long fingers tap on my nervous heart.
I love your fickle soul
and freckled shoulders.

You say you won't find peace of mind
in a cinderblock room
or on a piece of notebook paper,
so you crumple up your doubts
and hide your body with mine.

My shrunken lungs cannot draw breaths
not used to say your name.
I will be a blanket to warm your bones
from your downdraft hopes.
I will comb your hair with my fingers
on the days you don't wake.

But my heart breaks
on battlefields you will never hear of.
I lick wounds
you will never know to see.
I train my trembling hands
so they may gently soothe you in sleep.

I can love you better than I can fix myself.
I will fight becoming what I fear
in order to be all that you need.