My Little Heart

By Fernando Gallegos

Curious about life
I tied a string to my heart
And it began to float away
I followed it close
Holding ever so tight
It led me through the most magnificent views
It walked with me along the most beautiful beaches
One day during an ominous storm I couldn’t hold on
I let my heart go
It floated away and I couldn’t keep up
It traveled through storms
Through the thickest forests and the darkest nights
It crashed alongside cliffs
It was pecked at by birds of differing names
At times it was shot at by scoundrels
You heard my cries, you came to me
Together we reached my heart
Dragged it home
We cried over it
We mended it’s wounds
We fed it what love we could find
It beat slower
It shrank away
It hurt to love
It hurt to see the sun light
It cried at night
It looked like a shadow of it’s former self
I finally joined it
And felt the bitterness it had seen
I tasted the salt from the sea and the sting from the bullets
I felt the scars it had grown
But it was home
It was home
It was home
My little heart