A poem

The Soul She Guards

She keeps her soul behind
The locked doors,
Waiting for hands
Worthy enough to hold it,
Not just to touch -
But to claim it,
With the kind of love
That doesn't flinch.

---

She has loved before.
She has extended herself
Like an open window,
Only to feel the cold come in
And nothing warm stay.

So now she watches.
She waits at the edge of herself,
Tired - not of loving,
But of reaching
And finding only air.

---

When she chooses,
And she has chosen,
There was always something -
Standing between -
A wall she didn't build
Yet had to face alone.

And when she turned,
Hoping to be chosen back,
The silence answered first.

---

So she stopped playing
This game where the rules
Are written in someone else's favor,
Where pain runs deeper than any river,
But love -
Love barely grazes the surface.

She is tired.
Not the tired that
Sleep can cure,
But the kind that
Lives behind the eyes,
The kind that sighs before it speaks.

 

---

These days, nothing calls to her.
No purpose rises with the morning.
No direction feels worth the walking.
She is losing, quietly and completely,
Every reason she once held
To keep her soul alive.