My heart wants to get out into the world, but I keep it hidden. I tell it, stay still. Don’t make a sound. No one needs to see you.

There’s a heart that wants to get out, but I starve it of air, no one would ever know it exists.

It stirs sometimes. I say, You want to ruin me? Undo what I’ve built?

So it sits silently in there.

There’s a heart that wants to get out, but I’m always one step ahead.

I only let him out at night sometimes, when the world sleeps. I whisper, I know you’re in there. Don’t be sad.

I can’t let it die, since I need it to live. And maybe, since it hasn’t given up, it still wants me to live too.

We sleep together like that, bound by our secret pact,

It is kind. Kind enough to make me cry. But I don’t cry.