Sunday, September 12

On a cool and wet Saturday night, i found a woman's heart on a windowsill.

It is small, wrapped in tin, and incredibly light. I cannot help, but wonder whom it belongs to. I turn it over in the palm of my hand, examining it for identifying marks.
It is not ornate by any means, but it is still beautiful. Small designs make their way along the edge like ancient runes from a time that never existed outside this woman's mind. Whatever spell she was scribing, perhaps one of protection, has been left unfinished. Gaps dot the barrier, tiny spaces through which only the tiniest bits of love and pain may enter. Looking closer i can see that the seam along which the tin was sealed is shoddy, at best.
This is not the heart of a careful woman, no. It is the heart of a woman who has learned a lesson. Something or someone made her want to hide her heart away, but i get the feeling it was a surprise. A sour one.

I hold her heart close to my ear and listen....
Yes, it is certainly still beating, despite it's newfound cage. Or rather, in spite of it. The tempo is slow, but not sad. A gentle rhythm to soothe the mind and move the blood. The beating begins to make my eyes heavy, so i place it onto my desk and rest my hand on top of it.
I can feel it's palpitations now, i can hear it tapping out it's simple rhythm on my desk. But this heart is still young, much to learn yet, and so it slips here and there. Like a fourth grade orchestra trying to play Mozart. this heart is filled with ambition, but is still too young to know what to do with it.

I listen to it play a while longer, trying to figure out how one loses their heart. Especially this one. Obviously she had taken some care to guard her heart, so why has it been left laying so carelessly on a windowsill?
My first thoughts are unpleasant. Perhaps this heart is broken and does not work properly anymore? Maybe it had been stolen by a thief whose only want was to take it and not to keep it. She may have given it away to the wrong person; the sort of person who leaves precious things on windowsills. Maybe she went out on the town looking for the sort of thing one does not bring their heart into?
In any case, it was only the city what stole her heart that evening.

Or was it me? Am i the thief or the guardian in this equation?

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