My Heart is Occupied.

Nobody lives here.
you assume this because your knocks went unanswered.
this vessel for which causes the very beat in my step is anything but empty.
It simply is
Occupied.
I hung a sign there long ago,
turned out the lights and sat next to the window
because I have reached my love limit.
I have loved and loved and loved and not learned to stop loving
and I simply have no need to make any room for another love to keep and still lose.
My heart is
Occupied.

How many of them have I felt some kind of way for?
Taught to love from birth until my heart hurts and threatens to burst,
I now make the decision to say NO.
"There's no room in the inn"
"You cannot come in"
"We cannot be more than friends"
"I have all the family and friends I need and require no more"
"This establishment is OCCUPIED and I cannot,will not take anymore!"
Only to love another and lose three more in their place...

How do you keep loving when every month of the year claims a different victim?
When the ones you love, you hold close for fear of losing them
And you try and play God thinking that your very thoughts can protect them
or that you can personally call in a favor to God and get mad when he does his own thing.
When DESPITE your very efforts the harder you try Not to love, you love EVERYBODY
and a new murder on the other side of the world is like another relative killed.
Hell no,
My heart is occupied!

I can't even watch the damn news without feeling like I have been shot at.
I can console and hold the hands of relatives and friends of the deceased because how many times have I had to do it?
Blessed and cursed with the poetic eye to see things how they really are
and my upbringing won't let me sugarcoat and my blessing won't allow me to desensitize.

I can love from a distance if I have to
but my heart is OCCUPIED.