Found: a broken heart

 It was all so different than I expected.

I found your broken heart.

I found it in the neighborhood tiny library amid trashy romance novels, and strange self-help books. It was stashed in the back behind some canned food. Curious, I picked it up and watched little pieces of your heart fall out into my hands. I didn’t expect your heart to just crumble when I opened the cover. I expected it to hold itself together a little better. 

I put it back on the shelf, but I put it in front of the canned food, in case you came by, realizing it was missing. I was sure you were coming back for it. No one just leaves a broken heart on the bike trail. 

I turned my purple running shoes toward the trail and trotted off - leaving the bits of you there. 

But I kept thinking about them. Who leaves their heart in the tiny library? Who lets the whole world, or at least the neighborhood, see their messy, broken pieces? 

Did your heart break and someone else picked up the little pieces and place them carefully in the library for you - or me - to find a little later? 

Did you leave it there free to rent, available to borrow? Maybe keep? 

Did some well-meaning family member decide to help you declutter your life and take those bits of your heart away? Maybe someone else needs a bit of broken heart? 

Did your heart fall out of the basket on your bike as you rode away from the early June rain? Did it break as it splashed down into the puddles on the sidewalk? 

Was it already broken, but stuffed under a bag, to be forgotten, but escaped anyway? To suddenly find itself in the tiny library, staring back at me?

It is true that I am a fan of broken things. 

So, on my way home from my run, I peeked into the little window on the tiny library to see if you had fetched your broken heart. You stared right back at me.

It was then I knew I was the new owner of your broken heart.

Your broken heart. 

It finds me in the night when you wrap your arms around me. It finds me when your toes search out mine beneath the sheets. It finds me in your merry eyes when you think I’ve done something silly. 

I try to feed it, and nourish it. I say soft words to your heart, and tell you I love you. I try to gently pick up the pieces and set them back in order. I try to avoid sudden movements and loud noises. I slip out of bed early in the morning, hoping your heart will rest its weary self. I try to keep a home your heart feels safe in.

Sometimes your heart looks up at me through a grimace, and I know a piece fell back out. It takes awhile to find which one it was, and where it went. I wonder if I think I lost some of the pieces on the way back from the tiny library. People have looked at your fragile heart when I am not sure what to do; they are sure someone rearranged some of the pieces - took some out. 

I hold up your pieces to the light, trying to understand what I am doing wrong. My own heart breaking a bit at my inability to fix these pieces.

I see her starting back at me. We hold each other’s stare. 

In the life you had before me, she loved you. And so did she, and so did she. And she also broke this piece of you and she broke that piece of you. I begin to suspect she kept some pieces of you.

 and therein lies the rub.

It is all so different than I expected.