Angie Nwokedi - My Heart On your Sleeve

Starry skies, summer vibes

Breathing lightly, smiling wide,

He comes to me, I stop him fast.

Love untrue, love, not you

Love, I knew

Love.

I move to strike

I move for pain.

I slap, I hit, I kick,

For love has left my clique

But then you say you love me

But I know my love no more

You smile and I glimpse my heart on your sleeve

And then I know

I feel like im under oath, just not to you.

I breath, I cry, I loved.

I will feel the pain

I will feel the hurt

But I will not feel love

Because love is cheating, cheating on him, cheating with you.

I will not feel love because I have loved and it was taken.

Love was stabbed in the back with a scared mans knife

Love was left to bleed, love was left untended

Cold, alone, dying, then dead.

So, impossibility comes to mind, when I see my heart plastered,

plastered and strewn on your sleeve

On your sleeve my hear t resides

But my heart died

Died with the love I had on the other side.

Why is my heart on your sleeve, when it was long dead and buried?

How is my heart on your sleeve, when I never wore it on my own?

When did my heart reach your wrist? I see it dangling close to your hip and I ask you how?

You say to me;

“It is on my sleeve because you refuse to carry it in your chest.”

The love of Adam by Eve was strong, relentless,

Nevertheless, she caused his death.

I stand as bearer of bad news, regina of regret.

Danger.

My heart belongs to someone else, now stolen by another

I buried my heart with the man that I loved, so how is it on your sleeve?

I should steal it back but you guard it.

So I slap you, hit you, kick you,

Then I kiss you, miss you, love you.

I reach the end, our silvers grey

Our children live and walk astray.

They say “mother, why is your silver always grey?”

And I say to them,

A long time ago, the man who had my heart was buried,

And I buried my heart with him.

But then a man stole my heart and I loved him, married him

But now, that man that died, that man I buried, that took my heart the first time,

Is on my mind

And your father, the thief, the one who cheated me out of my first love,

Is wandering, scamming and lying,

Showing others the same heart he showed me

Now I’m here, alone with you, thinking of the man I buried

And now I realize that he never relinquished my heart,

He kept it safe, protected, with our memories, while I fell for a scam artist with a heart on his sleeve.

One day, my hearts protector I will see again

My knees will graze gravel and my eyes caress rubble as I think of how to beg forgiveness.

For I allowed myself be scammed, scammed for the easy, scammed for the light.

Scammed because I thought I had more than one life.

The truth is, when I buried my heart , I should have trusted it to stay under,

Stay in limbo, stay unknown.

But I believed instead, in fairy tale.

Believed that Cinderella found her prince, that Rapunzel’s hair set her free,

that snow white survived the apple.