It’s a marvel—
how the human heart
can continue to want that same something
that so willingly smashed it to a thousand pieces.
It’s a wonder how it still beats
as it watches that something
meticulously plaster each of those
one thousand fragments onto its
mural of damaged conquests.

But the heart is in good company, I guess.
At least its own pieces have a commonality
with its surrounding neighborly shards.
Together they can be sharp and exude mystery—
no longer desired to be touched or examined
by the pairs of eyes that closely study their edges.

That something? He steps back.
With a grin ear to ear, he
enjoys the whole of his piecemeal creation.
With his beautiful hands,
he forces all of them to fit together,
Reminiscing as he watches them dry,
cementing them to memory,
telling his tales of pushes and pulls,
of warmth and chills.
Damage, his only true medium,
he finds much easier to manipulate than oils or pastels,
and that something, he is a master of his craft.

He contorts each of us into his own work of art,
fixed for the public eye with sticky regret
and dried by the countless nights of cold wonder.
And we wait, patiently, until his craftsmanship folds.
Until the plaster chips and crumbles.
Each of our pieces falling to the ground
in the hopes that someone will
pick us up, pocket us,
and appreciate the sullen beauty
in something that once was whole.