to stop portioning my heart
into subsistence-sized mouthfuls
only to achieve acceptable starvation.

I resolve to honor its messy,
bloody wholeness
filled with contradictions and dual realities.

I resolve to treat it gently
after hard days and harder decisions,
when even honoring the necessary and the true
bring out the covered-over bruises.

I resolve to make my heart
a partner, not an enemy,

to acknowledge the fighter it has always been,