On Holding Out My Heart
“She offered her heart like manna in the desert. He called it a mirage.”
I could have given you everything—
slow mornings,
lazy kisses,
tousled hair and sleep-heavy smiles.
I could have given you
so much.
The world, really:
heartfelt notes and butterflies.
But my heart—
offered on a platter,
gift-wrapped
with a trembling bow—
was beating,
bleeding,
torn from this hollow cavity,
presented like a child’s painting:
proud,
but too naïve to know.
It was softness.
Kindness.
Tenderness,
even when I was empty.
You didn’t even glance at it.
So I guess
there was no way you could’ve seen
how I was flailing—
struggling to hold up that platter.
My resilience a test—
and I was failing.
It was yours.
It wasn’t much—
but it was all I had.
And to you,
my everything
was nothing at all.
You treated it
like empty fanfare.
So when I say
I could have given you everything,
what I really mean is:
I did.
But everything
was nothing
to you—
when it was
all of me instead.
On Holding Out My Heart
“She offered her heart like manna in the desert. He called it a mirage.”
I could have given you everything—
slow mornings,
lazy kisses,
tousled hair and sleep-heavy smiles.
I could have given you
so much.
The world, really:
heartfelt notes and butterflies.
But my heart—
offered on a platter,
gift-wrapped
with a trembling bow—
was beating,
bleeding,
torn from this hollow cavity,
presented like a child’s painting:
proud,
but too naïve to know.
It was softness.
Kindness.
Tenderness,
even when I was empty.
You didn’t even glance at it.
So I guess
there was no way you could’ve seen
how I was flailing—
struggling to hold up that platter.
My resilience a test—
and I was failing.
It was yours.
It wasn’t much—
but it was all I had.
And to you,
my everything
was nothing at all.
You treated it
like empty fanfare.
So when I say
I could have given you everything,
what I really mean is:
I did.
But everything
was nothing
to you—
when it was
all of me instead.