Was It Not Valuable Enough?

I love you 
but
I would never put my heart in your back pocket.

I know 
it’d end up creased and crumpled up, 
crushed carelessly into a cold cloth corner 
alongside scrap paper and discarded receipts,
these roommates, residents relegated
to long-term tenancy,
rarely resurfacing. 

I know 
it’d wind up whirling through the wash, 
tingeing white work shirts pale pink with the ink of my organ,
bleeding like a busted ballpoint pen, when 
you, finally fallible,
forget,
slipping off your slacks so swiftly,
cramming them haphazardly into the hamper.

I know
how the coins come to collect in the cracks of couch cushions.
They slip straight through the split seams of your back pockets,
popped stitches through which
the slippery membranes of my muscle might just slide,
arriving at the same unfortunate end.

I know 
the silver chain that hangs,
thin links clinking coldly,
securing safely inside 
a warm, well-worn wallet of cow hide.
If I put my heart in your back pocket,
would you chain it up too?
Like leather left to 
dry, dying in dark washed denim?

I don’t know 
that I’d want you to.
But if you didn’t, a part of me would always wonder:
Was it not valuable enough?