Hermit crab heart
It was born a creature of the in-between,
soft and small, wrapped in the debris of something larger.
A hermit crab heart, claws too fragile to hold much,
but strong enough to cling.
It learned early: the world is no place for the naked.
Exposed things break. Exposed things bleed.
So it carried its home on its back,
a cracked shell of borrowed affections,
plucked from the wreckage of others’ storms.
A lover’s whispered promise,
a parent’s fleeting approval,
a friend’s laughter echoing down an empty hall.
These were all enough—until they weren’t.
The heart wandered.
Always seeking, never staying.
Down alleys slick with regret,
through forests where the trees murmured secrets,
and across deserts littered with the bones of dreams
that didn’t survive the drought.
It tried to nest in the chest of a stranger,
where the beat was steady but hollow.
It clawed at a poet’s ribs,
but the words were sharp,
cutting the heart more than they held it.
And the musicians—oh, the musicians—
their melodies swelled with promise,
only to collapse into noise.
The hermit heart learned the language of rejection,
how it sounds like a door closing,
like footsteps fading,
like silence louder than any scream.
But still, it wandered.
Because what else could it do?
It was not a thing meant to stay in one place.
Or so it thought.
Then it found you.
Not in a blaze of glory,
but in the quiet between moments.
Your chest was open,
a harbor of steady tides.
Your ribs didn’t clench,
your lungs didn’t sigh with impatience.
You simply waited,
letting the heart decide.
And the hermit heart, for the first time,
stopped moving.
It shed its shell—slowly, fearfully—
and placed its raw, aching self
into the rhythm of you.
It was still afraid.
It would always be afraid.
But as your breath rose and fell,
it realized something strange:
it didn’t need to run anymore.
Because this was home.
Not borrowed, not fleeting.
But real, and warm,
and forever.
soft and small, wrapped in the debris of something larger.
A hermit crab heart, claws too fragile to hold much,
but strong enough to cling.
It learned early: the world is no place for the naked.
Exposed things break. Exposed things bleed.
So it carried its home on its back,
a cracked shell of borrowed affections,
plucked from the wreckage of others’ storms.
A lover’s whispered promise,
a parent’s fleeting approval,
a friend’s laughter echoing down an empty hall.
These were all enough—until they weren’t.
The heart wandered.
Always seeking, never staying.
Down alleys slick with regret,
through forests where the trees murmured secrets,
and across deserts littered with the bones of dreams
that didn’t survive the drought.
It tried to nest in the chest of a stranger,
where the beat was steady but hollow.
It clawed at a poet’s ribs,
but the words were sharp,
cutting the heart more than they held it.
And the musicians—oh, the musicians—
their melodies swelled with promise,
only to collapse into noise.
The hermit heart learned the language of rejection,
how it sounds like a door closing,
like footsteps fading,
like silence louder than any scream.
But still, it wandered.
Because what else could it do?
It was not a thing meant to stay in one place.
Or so it thought.
Then it found you.
Not in a blaze of glory,
but in the quiet between moments.
Your chest was open,
a harbor of steady tides.
Your ribs didn’t clench,
your lungs didn’t sigh with impatience.
You simply waited,
letting the heart decide.
And the hermit heart, for the first time,
stopped moving.
It shed its shell—slowly, fearfully—
and placed its raw, aching self
into the rhythm of you.
It was still afraid.
It would always be afraid.
But as your breath rose and fell,
it realized something strange:
it didn’t need to run anymore.
Because this was home.
Not borrowed, not fleeting.
But real, and warm,
and forever.
31-35, M
