Carry This Weight

Without you here, my sternum collapses into the cavity it was designed to
protect, making a terrible, sick sound.  Similar to that of cracking open a
clam's shell, only to discover that there is no pearl inside.
There is only a bleeding empty.

I am waiting to meet with you again, because you have it.  You're holding it.
You stole it when I first peered inside your eyes...  Okay, so you didn't steal
it.  It fell in.
But that's too embarrassing to admit, because

I am strong.  My arms are trees with tiny, fragile fingers reaching for the
sky.  My shoulders carry the weight of every bird I am jealous of, attracting
more and more everyday; They're lucky they're beautiful.
I am STRONG.  I don't need anyone.  I don't need you, I don't need a heart.
I need fire.  I need someone to take my arms and chop them down: Make firewood
out of them.  Throw the wood into my chest and start a fire to keep yourself
warm.  To keep us warm.  

But I have soggy lungs, and it would never catch.  So, instead, I carry the
weight in my chest, heaving and wheezing with every step: I am dying.  I am
covered in every initial of every lover and little punk and every person who's
ever looked at me dirty, so that I may never forget. Never forget

The time you wrapped your fingers around my branches, and told me that I had a
name.  That I was alive, with soggy breaths and wooden limbs.  That I am
strongly hard-headed, and told me to carry it all with me.  

You are the weight I carry.
The weight in the middle of my chest that takes away my breath every time I
think of it, the weight that screams your name and makes me want stay.
The weight that has thrown me into the sea, so that all the birds can sing with
the fish.
The weight that has sunken me, the chest, into the center of the earth.

I will never forget that.
I will never forget you.
Please come back.