A Hundred Pieces

[Verse 1]
I took my chest and I opened it wide
A hundred neat rows sitting inside
A hundred small fractions of beating and red
"Take what you need," is the whisper I said
I handed them out to the crowd on the street
To the cold and the passing, the ones I would meet
And ninety-five kept them or put them away
But five of them threw them where heavy boots tread.

[Chorus]
A hundred pieces of a single heart
Scattered like dust when they tear it apart!
You crush the fraction that I gave to you
And the whole ninety-nine feel the fracture run through!
It's a beautiful mess, it's a terrible trade
To bleed for the people who walk on the blade!
A hundred pieces, and some are just stone
But the ones that are broken leave me half-alone.

[Verse 2]
I feel the sharp sting of a far-away heel
Grinding a corner of glass that was real
A sudden cold spasm, a shudder at night
Somebody's throwing their fragment from flight
I can't ask for return of the ones that they keep
So I lie in the silence and count them to sleep
The ninety-five holding, the five in the clay
My divided chest beats in a strange, broken way.

[Bridge]
No math can repair this
No formula heals
The arithmetic pain of the way a heart feels
Divide it by hundred, subtract three or four
The remainder is bleeding all over the floor.

[Outro]
I still have the pieces...
The ones they didn't break...
But oh, the quiet ache...
Of the ones they did.