Another Friend Has Gone

You can't keep them, after all.
Hearts are not to be collected,
or dissected,
hung unchanging on a pretty chain.
You've but yourself to blame.
The tin-type, through-glass, museum love will not, my dear suffice.
It's not honest to act fatalistically nice.

The shriveled dry preserved unchanging hearts you'd wear
could never fruit of truedeepalways bear.
For that just two will be required,
as you know you play with fire,
but better flames contained in homely hearth
Than burnburnburning, scorching fertile earth.

Their hearts aren't to be worn.
No trophy, no reward,
to she who's hurt the most with cruel desire.
(Recall, you play with fire.)

And no amount of "fond" and "dear"
approximates the real true crux
Of hearts grown only-near.

You cannot keep them, they will go,
with swift less hurt or long, cruel, slow
But in the end there's nothing left but (perhaps) yourself
And no, no, no one else.

They'll to their wives, let that suffice,
and you will to your bed.
But better that,
than hearts collected,
dead.