Shards

I thought I understood what love was before,
when I would move mountains for a glance.
But they constantly saw the action, not me.
The effort, but not once the heart behind it.
I gave myself away piece by piece
until one day there was nothing left to give.

So I sit, lonely, bare, and exposed
My pieces carried off by the monsters
who couldn't handle love like mine;
pure, unconditional, and with no rules,
the same monsters that left me abandoned.
My pieces broken, shattered, splintered,
scattered across time that I cannot recover.

With a shaky breath and trembling legs,
I stand to gather a hammer and nails
to seal the window they entered through.
I start to slam it, but a hand stops me,
trembling like mine, asking to stay
Asking to meet me in this fragile place.

He kneels to lift two shards of my heart
They cut him, drawing blood, still he adores them
He looks at them like they're the prettiest things
He has been given the privilege to see
Like every broken shard is a blessing

He doesn't notice it, and it may be the beauty
of the shift, and the way it grabs my focus.
One by one, the shards return
finding one another, forming as before;
Pieces long broken,
Fragments long forgotten,
Shards slowly whole once more.

I'm not anywhere near complete, but with him,
I can sense the weight start to lift
not all at once, not completely,
but plenty for the next breath to be softer
and to believe that, even if he doesn't stay,
the shards will still fall together one day.