I will preserve you like the sun preserves the brown in
my hair
May you need me like you do, forever

Sometimes you jar me into an unthinking sorrow
I doubt my heart, shrieking loud enough to pierce its
walls
When it unflowers and the veins are shed
You appear again, awaken from the dead,
Or perhaps from my very own self
I do not need to know

I hope you'll preserve me like a pearl inside a locket,
too
So that when my heart is rebuilt again
Maybe a little less red this time
I am still whole and soft like a mother's touch
You're still a home, a haven, a shrine
Even if I wander alone in fairs, concerts, cafés and
malls
Carve my way through dingy lanes
Or get lost inside humongous halls
I'll unload into you all my noise
And we can make music
Like we do,
Like we'll do.

We'll be preserved in touches unshaken
Doors ajar, no tiptoeing around
Our calm rejoicing in silence and sound
We will keep it all
Life will go, as it goes on
We will go, as we must
Yet we can't leave so we will stay
Preserved in our love and trust.