I have given to the world my body—

famished by their wrath, 

dried up by the char of their needs, 

hollowed by their hunger for 

what is not in me. 

I have given to them my body as it bathes

on a hopeless thinking

that it is unscathed.

I have submitted to them 

my body but not my heart

(my mind’s best friend, my soul’s dwelling.)

What my heart holds—

why the world refused to take it—

is a poem 

only you could comprehend

and perhaps have it as your own.

All I can give you is my heart—

my mind’s best friend, my soul’s dwelling—

and nothing more.