tonight i lost my own heart

Tonight I lost my own heart.
I am broken.
I am sad.
I am lost.

You were there—
a swift breath against my ear.

You said,
I am not fit for consumption,
yet still you laid yourself down
like a sacrifice upon my altar.

And I drank from you—
your blood in a greasy purple plastic cup,
letting you
quench my thirst.

Later you said it again:
I am not fit for consumption.

The first time I listened.
The second time
I heard you.

Your soft voice
whispered terrible truths
into the chambers of my heart.

Now I am left only to imagine—
what you think,
what you feel—
knowing I will never hear it
from you again.

You took something from me tonight.
Or maybe
I laid it at your feet.

Perhaps it still rests there
on the same marble step
where you entered the holy cathedral

while I wander the cobblestone streets
searching for the thing I left behind
in places
I can no longer remember.

Am I desperate for a reason
to believe this meant something
more than nothing?

Maybe.

Maybe I was never in your heart
to begin with.

After all—
where would I have fit?

In some forgotten corner
of the right ventricle,
where dirty blood passes through
before it comes clean.

Still
I cannot help but search for you—
for the real you—
for some meaning of you

so I can tell myself
I am not the fool.

But I am the fool anyway,
and there is no escaping
that quiet, uneasy truth.

Harsh memories hammer
without mercy inside my mind.

My thoughts ache.
Pain slips easily
into the cracks
of a broken heart.

I stand steady
on a paper floor,
tears softening the foundation.

Luckily
I do not have far to fall.

Luckily
there is always
a bottom.