My heart untimely ripped from its chest,
I saw it held in nail-polished claws
and watched the life ooze down a slender arm.
“Don’t let me stop you giving this to another,”
she said as she walked away.
“But you still have it,” I cried.
“You gave it to me, didn’t you?” she countered.
“You promised this was mine forever,”
using my honor against me as women do.
“Besides, it’s better this way,” she explained,
“you’d only give this heart to the
next pretty young thing that happened by.”
And I could not argue the point
as I watched her take my heart
and fade into the crowd.
There’s an emptiness at my core now,
a satisfying ache reminding me that
it really is better this way.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of my first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular. To celebrate I’m posting my favorite poems from the book on Wednesday nights, of course.
