Heartstrings

Heartstrings

My patchwork heart is stained
Soaked by my sins and each separate square is held in place
By pins that threaten to slip with every heartbeat

And each thread is worn
Discoloured by age and by love and by rage and 
By shades of expectations they eventually frayed

Fragile and failing
The hues have dulled with dirt and desire and
It beats like its bursting or it actually wants to

But not an explosion
More tired abandon than expel of emotion
A stuttering stop to exhausting devotion

Between each breath the seams relax
And for that short release the tainted strings lay at ease
And await the pull of

another 

heavy 

beat.