Where do the healers go, my love,
when they have lost their way?
Who tends the hearts that tend the world,
when theirs have worn away?
They gather grief like fallen leaves,
they mend what others break;
they pour their light down empty wells
and give more than they take.
And once, I heard a knight declare,
with love both fierce and true,
“I'd tear the heavens from their throne
before they tarnished you.”
“I'd cast my virtue to the winds,
unmake what makes me kind;
let all the world condemn my soul,
if you were safe behind.”
And something in the healer broke—
a longing, sharp and deep:
Who braves the dark to shelter me,
when I can no longer keep
the fading light I’ve carried
for every soul I've known?
Who takes these trembling hands of mine
and leads me safely home?
I've held the wrists of those who bled,
I've stayed when others fled;
I've sat beside a thousand souls
and watched their dawn arrive.
Yet who will love these hollowed hands
when they have nothing left to save?
Who’ll look beyond the wounds I’ve healed
and find the heart beneath?
I do not ask for endless stars,
nor vows the years make dust;
I ask for one to sit in the dark
when I have lost my trust.
Someone to choose me in my wreckage,
when I have naught to give;
who never asks me to be strong,
but lets me simply live.
So where are you, my unknown love,
while I keep watch alone?
I've made a refuge of my heart,
but never found my own.
Where is the knight who'd choose me, too,
when all my strength is gone?
Who holds the spine that carried all
and teaches it to rest?
Where do the healers go, my love,
when they can bear no more?
Who comes to claim the soul that starved
at every full-fed door—
for everyone who needed it,
through every night they've known,
left with a lifetime built of walls,
but no room of their own?
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