When a heart is broken, 
Why doesn't she run?

Why must she seek out perpetrators 
Until granted permission to hurt, 
Until bestowed validation 
In accordance with presently felt brokenness?

Seeking intimacy with abusers of proximity.
Seeking depth of awareness 
By those willing to tear her apart;
Willing to piece together an identity
Not belonging to them,
Yet submissive to their desires all the same.
Loyalty, the bed she lives and dies on. 

Why does a heart 
Give more than she owns? 

Accruing debt with hope
Each risk will reap reward.
Laden with desperation
To see effort compassionately,
most handsomely compensated.
Still, good deeds and despair
Equal not heaven's acceptance.
Her naivety leading 
Straight to slaughter.

Why is effort most appealing
To a heart overcome by grief and weariness?

Overcome by the urge to unravel
Bandages covering her wounds — 
Wounds no one wants to see.
Not she.
Not even me. 

Once white bandages, now stained red;
Unraveled and waved,
The ultimate act of surrender,
Because a heart chose to stay. 

Why doesn't she run?
Why doesn't she save herself? 

Why didn't she save me?