Layered Heart Poem by Joshua Hillard

Molded by the strongest hands,
Imaged by a creative mind,
Perfected by the sharpest tools,
A heart was formed by the test of time,

Summoned to live among the crowd,
Materialized by the thickest steel,
A test to see how much it’ll take,
From the pain it has, to the hate it feels,

Years have passed, for its still beating,
Lessons learned and it’s still learning,
Knowledge gained can also break walls,
For a chemical was found to begin the burning,

Smelting down the steel in a pool of metal,
The outer shell has become no more,
A protective barrier of plastic still lies,
Battling all, for what’s all in store,

The heart begins to weaken,
Its function fights the names and pain,
The plastic cracks; pieces lie scattered to the floor,
One layer left, the gift of glass now remains…

Built shatterproof, a final if and all,
Up to this point is has remain intact,
But I am leading up to my final battle,
The glass spider webbed, leaving traces of a crack,

Though vulnerability gets in,
Sweeping through every leak of life,
This still remains strong,
Until shattered this very night.

My heart now remains open,
No wall or barrier to protect,
This Heaven made, manmade heart,
Gives up on its entire defense,

So broken yet whole,
No words can make me fall,
For my heart bleeds a shiny red covering,
Fighting between you and me, from me to all,

The last layer of this heart,
The skin that holds and accepts each beat,
Follows the life in the bruises it faces,
Until the day it cracks, until the day it bleeds…