Pieces

My heart has been broken
too many times to count.
Each time, a piece of who I was
vanishes from my soul
to be molded over.
Patches of which cannot be healed.

I use the word 'vanish' lightly,
knowing pieces of me lie
in the hands my mother struck
me with growing up.
The bottles I smashed
when I discovered my father
was drinking again.

I'm sure there are bits of me
in every job I've worked
and every man I've let touch me.
The rice hat I bought Gerard
and the packs of Eagle 20's we smoked.
With Aaron in the never-ending
bottles/cans/glasses of Busch Lite
and the wallet he pays for his
never-ending addiction with.
The bar, I've drowned
my sorrows in for the past year;
and on the lips of every man
I have drunkenly kissed there.

I'd bet money my high-school-sweetheart,
Riley,
still has giant chunks of me
in our long drives home from college,
in any razor blade he looks at.
In giraffes and lilies and German Shepherds and
the word 'depressed' and our songs
and Marlboro Red 100's and the tree
we would carve every February and the cemetery
we used to park by to have sex in high school
and anyone else who may point-out that his eyes
do in fact turn from brown to green in the sun
and the scars and the guardrail I crashed into
after he refused to take me back.

So many patches,
pieces floating in the wind.

To this day,
I still have a gaping hole
for the contents that spilled
in the creek where my dog
drowned.
Where my personal blame floats
like a buoy;
surrounded by many ways I've
punished myself since.

I've left a piece in every toilet
I have ever purged into.
Every tear my best friend
has seen me cry.
Every memory I've buried
in the bottom of my mind.

For every lost piece of myself,
I've healed;
strengthened.
Each lost piece represents
a person I'm happy to no longer be.
I'm punctured,
but proud.