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This Is My Heart

This is my heart.
Here, you can hold it while I explain. Just…be gentle, OK?
That piece right there,
the indention with the dark scar,
I fell in love once.
That piece is gone forever;
it reminds me of that time in my life.
Although the pain is gone,
I still feel how it is forever changed.
I run my finger over that part occasionally,
remembering how happy I was to find someone to give my heart to,
and the gut wrenching pain I endured taking it back.

Those scars,
I’ve loaned it to a couple of people and it didn’t come back to me in the same condition.
Even though they knew it wasn’t theirs,
they didn’t necessarily respect that it was mine.
Foolish perhaps to let others handle it so carelessly,
but it feels like it beats stronger when in the hands of someone else.
It’s such a paradox,
how it’s stronger when given away,
but always comes back feeling so torn and weak.

That bruise,
I trusted someone recently who lied to me.
It’s a deep bruise and still fresh,
it aches some and it really hurts when touched,
but it will heal with no permanent damage.
I know because I have had bruises like that before.
I still trust people though and believe humanity,
as a whole, is full of good people who are trustworthy.

Those scratches are minor,
almost like paper cuts on your finger.
Those are the words from talks with friends and family.
They are mostly accidental.
They burn and irritate for a day or two but soon it is as if they never existed.

I was trusted with someone's heart once,
it bears a scar similar to the one on mine.
I knew I couldn’t keep it forever,
but by the time I admitted that to myself it had already become a part of me.
As I tore it away from me to return it to the one I loved there was no way to do so without damage.
The pain from that hurts more than any of the pain inflicted on my own heart.

It weird,
looking at it cradled in your hands,
you’ve scratched it sometimes,
but I’m not scared.
My greatest fear isn’t the potential for you hurting my heart.
My greatest fear is breaking yours.

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