Love Poem: Exposed To the Core
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Written by: Lin Lane

Exposed To the Core

I didn't want to offer him my life but discovered it was not mine to give
When he entered my world my heart beat to the rhythm it chose to live
My muse was awakened from many slumbering years
to write of her longings and to cry pensive tears.
Though she knew that my heart could be wounded once more,
it didn't prevent her from exposing my heart's core.

She wrote page after page of happiness new love delivered
of tear stains that fell on sad days when I shivered
of the joys of love,  a table laden with sumptuous feast
of reality that strangles the heart, rendering it a skeletal beast.
Still my muse wrote skeins, thousands of words of love to impart
in a book titled 'De tout avec mon Coeur': Everything within my heart.
In duplicate, the poems were made. He craved to own them all.
Two tomes filled with years of bared love. Then came his fall.

My Muse kept writing of sorrow and pain from my pillaged mind.
When we left him, a piece of my heart and my love remained behind.
Only one book now to fill, but quickly doubled in size
Poems of my disappointments; poems of his lies.
Then nothing more.  My pen ran dry - only a few meager lines.
Despite my Muse's prodding, the pen of a broken heart resigns.
It took time and healing before my thoughts again ran onto paper.
Once I held a pen the words appeared like ribbons of steamy vapor.

After a year, a package arrived from the man I had adored.
Inside was his book of poems with a note I should've ignored.
"I thought you might like to have these poems in your possession.
I know how important they are to you, but I must make a confession.
I made copies of the ones I loved the most. I hope that's ok with you."
A heart on the mend is vulnerable and weak. Mine was turning blue,
strangled once more from the words he had written -
Another segment of my bleeding heart he had bitten.

No reply did I send. I feared what my written words might've said.
He injured me again.  My Muse reared her protective head.
In fetal position I wanted to stay but she tore at my conscience all night.
She kept me busy until my fingers numbed, then she faded out of sight.
It's easier now, most of the time, to pen my emotions without crying.
My heart told me its healing at last, and no longer feels like it's dying.
I've conceived the notion that by returning the book, he was being kind.
Probably was, but I felt he'd slapped my face. Love messes with the mind.

The book he returned sits on a shelf.  I haven't thrown it away.
Maybe I keep it as a testament that we loved. Maybe I will...some day.
It's still in tact because my book has been plundered and torn apart -
ravaged one night by my own hands, when anger entered my heart.