Poetry...Tuesday?

Today's photo prompt was "Exposing Your Red." I posted this photo, and the words of the prompt stuck in my head until I used them in a poem. I've been writing a lot of rhyming quatrains lately, "channeling my inner Emily," as Irene called it in her comment last Poetry Friday, and I did the same with this one.

Exposing My Red

A heart of flesh God gave me,
And not a heart of stone,
A stone one is more stoic
And never feels alone.

They say that I should guard my heart
And I have done my best,
But love lets in marauders
To the space inside my chest.

Sometimes my heart is flung about,
Since it’s quite undefended,
It’s kicked around the battlefield
By those it has befriended.

It lacks protective armor,
To prevent a scar or crack;
Whether attacked by one who does
Or does not love me back.

I’d wrap my heart up carefully
And treat it with more care
But I have learned that doesn’t help
And so I leave it bare.

So I hang my heart on doorknobs
And wear it on my sleeve,
Expose its red to ridicule,
Accept that it will grieve.

The only way to keep my heart
Unscarred, all fresh and new,
Would be to keep all love away,
And that I cannot do.

Ruth, from thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com