You’ll end up hurt, they said.

Watch out for your heart, they said.

It’s always fun and games until it shatters

into a million pieces glittering, littering

the depths of a broken heart.

Be careful! Don’t want your feet to get cut up! and bloodied and eventually scabbed…

so tread carefully.

I weighed my chances but I followed my feelings.

So now you’re hurt, they say.

You didn’t guard your heart, they say.

But I’d rather have spent one day

recklessly, endlessly, timelessly wrecking my heart with you

than a hundred years guarding my heart from

those ephemeral treasures that you offer,

sparkling in the palm of your hand –a touch I have come to memorize–

Is a diamond not a diamond because it only

lasted but a moment?

Is gold not gold if it disappears? It is,

but for a moment.

When all is said and done,

those treasures –your treasures– ephemeral treasures

gleam brighter than any permanent prize.

Because although other precious things may be impossible to break,

the memory, the shadow, of

our ephemeral treasures

are reckless, endless, timeless.

And it breaks me every time.