This World Of Mine (For K.M.G.) Poem by Martin Patrick McCarthy

She keeps her heart locked up tight
Too many thieves in the night;
Many times the key was given, but each day
The thief opens the lock, takes the heart, and slithers away.
What is outside will stay outside,
What is inside will state inside.
'My heart is mine! ' That is her decree,
'Let my heart an inpeneterable fortress be! '
Many men since have tried to scale the walls,
Here a man tumbles, there another falls.
She stands above them all, confident and stoic,
Her campaign against men is nothing if not heroic.
'If any man possesses me, it shall be the outside only! '
And with that declaration, she will always be lonely.

She remembers when her heart was free,
Those were more precarious times.
She lacked courage, fire, confidence.
Those who had free reign of her heart
Robbed her of her virtues
And in their place, left
The pieces of her broken heart.
Quivering in a corner, trying to survive
She hardened her heart to the outside
But also trapping her heart on the inside.
She is part of this world of mine
And I long to set her free...

(10 February 1997)