Broken Body

Not while my heart still beats
Not while my lungs still draw breath
Not while my bones still hold me upright
Not while my muscles still bear my weight
Not while my skin still keeps me from coming apart at the seams
Not while my mind still thinks but
One
Sane
Thought

I will not love you
I will not let you into my heart
I will not let you break apart its ventricles
I will not let you cave in its atria
I will not let you tear open its veins
I will not let you rend its arteries
From end
To end

I will not
A thousand times I say I will not
But I do
A thousand times I know I do

I love you
I love you while you poison my mind
I love you while you weaken my body
I love you while you pull the breath from my lungs
I love you while you aim the rifle
I love you while you break my heart

Break my heart
Hasten its pace until it breaks apart
Heavy its load until it caves in
Heal it then rend and tear it anew

Open my heart open my veins open my every compartment until love spills out inexorably like blood finally finding its escape through a gunshot to the chest straight through the heart

I am a soldier
Shot in this war my heart wages
I am a casualty
Fallen on this battlefield called love

You are the bullet wounds
Bleeding me out as I lie alone
You are the bandages
Keeping me alive against all odds

We are this war
And I am a soldier
But I don't die here
Don't die in the battle
Don't die on the hospital bed
Don't die by the hand of my enemy

I am weakened poisoned breathless and broken
But I don't die here

And I will not love you
Even though I do
And I will fight for you
Even though I fight against you
Because I don't die here
Because you deserve more than that
Even though you break my heart
Even though it was you

You pulled the trigger