You gather me up
when everything breaks.
You gather me up
when the heart shatters,
stops beating,
and nothing
flows through the veins.

You sweep up the pieces
and take me home with you.
You try to revive
what barely moves.
My T-shirt is stained with tears
and hardly dries
on the way to you.

Your bed rocks me into safety.
The silence and a loving embrace
soothe my heart for a moment.
Yet the night betrays unrest,
for my feelings rage so wildly inside me.
The cigarettes burn out in the kitchen.

All night I sit here now,
smoking one after another,
until the sun pushes the moon away.
I try to understand,
yawning at sunrise —
how could all this happen?

You gather me up
in the smoky morning air.
You make me breakfast,
a friend who never tries to ask.
You don’t seek the reasons,
you’re simply there for me.
Nothing is as it was.

What remains are rims of salt,
and the walk back into this world,
as if on a thousand needles.
Each one pierces straight into the heart,
digging the wounds deeper,
sending me into a haze.

Yet still,
you gather me up.

-A

All my love poems.