Heart Strings

vulnerable ;

For you, I become vulnerable.
For you, I peel off the layers, upon layers, upon layers of facades I've built up with aching hands. I'm the little flame of flickering candle light - exposed, dancing, naked. I'm the story, bleeding out, clawed to the flesh, clawed to the bone that hungry coyotes left on your doorstep.
So take me in.
I've seen you nurse little birds with their broken wings. You are soft like the feathers you ruffle when you hold a tragedy in your hands. I know you're soft. You're soft to animals, you're soft to the four walls of your house when you cry at night, and the stars that shine at 3 am when you spill your heart out.
You're soft to things that can't hear you, that can't understand. Almost as if you're scared to be heard or understood.
So take me in. I'm right here, soaked in the rain - look at what the cat dragged in. I'll still be here, come morning, come next year, come the end of a lifetime.
Because for you I'm vulnerable, and that's something I almost never am. Here I have placed my heart in the palms of your hands. A tragedy.
Will you be soft to it, or will you not? I have no way of knowing, and yet I stay. I keep on staying. You could hurl that heart at the walls, like you do with anything human. Or you could come here, place your heart in the empty hollow of my chest, and be vulnerable with me.