WHAT MATTERS

WHAT MATTERS
Can a heart hold memories of those loved?

Can it be partitioned up like land? 

And does it have space for those yet to come?

Or does it have the capacity to grow, to expand?

I'm a tainted soul not raised in love

though love isn't hard for me to give.

14 before I found I could be loved

and words then filtered through my head like flour through a sieve.

What I know of love wasn't inherited.

I was denied everything I should have been given.

And yet out of that comes someone who feels love,

whose past can't be forgotten but may be forgiven.

A loveless family whose tree I uprooted.

I planted a new one that started with me.

Now mature like a gnarled oak,

its roots will spread and connect with my new family.

The heart does remember all those loved

even if it might have been fleetingly

and all those who may have loved me

maybe from a distance, maybe secretly.

They bring home to me something I know

from all those times my life was in tatters.

It isn't as long as one element is there.

Love is all that matters.