What the Heart Holds

scrawled 1.16.2011 by miss.abi | E-mail this post

...When the Hands are Empty

Moments of weakness
slip through half-closed doors
as echoes,
settling into the hollows
your absence leaves.
And storms collect atop mountain cheeks,
threatening to flood you
from my thoughts.

On nights like these,
I return to past charades
of hand-holding grenades and blitzkrieg kisses,
obliterated defenses
in a world turned on its head.

Once again
doubt creeps out from corners
and I curl fetal position between sheets,
hands wrapped around bent knees;
lost in my head, retracing the steps of regret
that left me twisted in the depths of his chasms.

You know well how he dug inside,
excavating hope like some grave robber,
false dreammonger,
rearranging my mind
to leave me blindsided.
Eyes plucked out
to keep from seeing truth
tucked into back pockets amidst excuses
for the many times he tore me open.

If I am to love you,
it must be like this:

broken.

Cast of plaster around us
to protect what is damaged.
For you,
I am cracking open.
Fingers deep in chest cavity,
scraping the remains of disaster
into something that can beat again.

Your kiss is shock treatment,
jump starting flat lines
chalked around the figures
of dreams that died daily;
fingertips erasing prints
I have worn as shackles.
Your hands are healing,
mending cracks in bones and mirrors
that hold shadows of his reflection.
For in your eyes,
I see new destinations.

And I try...
I try not to bury you in expectations.

But you must understand,
the heart holds very little left.
For me this is life or death.
Love turned
Russian roulette.

And so I wrap my lips around you,
praying,
for another chance to live.