We are listening to poetry
And I am admiring your silhouette
I suddenly notice the delicate strength of your hands
And the intricate lines of your palm
I want to study each of them
Run my fingers over them

You bite your nails
and your other hand faces upward
I should take your hand
I want to
Put my hand in yours
Run my thumb across skin
I want to
But I know
I shouldn’t
You hand is being held by someone else
But oh, how I wish to take that hand
Press skin against skin
Swing arms playfully in the chill of the night
Oh, how I wish to take that hand
To dance under the moonlight
I will twirl you around and you will laugh
And that will be the music we sway to

I am admiring your silhouette
I should kiss you
Break the silence that begs to be broken
Oh, how I wish to kiss those lips
Press skin against skin
Leaving cherry red stains behind

My mind is somewhere else
My mind is with you
Oh, how I wish to tell you about the dangerous increase of you in my thoughts
Dare I?
Dare I say how much I enjoy your presence?
Dare I say how I admire your silhouette or your hands?
Dare I say how I wish to hold that hand, press skin against skin?
No, I do not dare
For he is holding you now
But still, I call you darling
Still I comment on your breathtaking loveliness
Oh, how I wish to take that hand!

You look most beautiful when you are going on about him
But my dear, you would still look beautiful even with your hands around my throat

Maybe we met in a past life
Cherry stained lips and Aventurine eyes
So familiar and comfortable
Maybe some other where, some other when
You held my hand
and I embraced you between white hotel sheets

We spoke of pretty places we'd someday go
Her eyes shine like stars do
And beautiful things are lost in the search for quantity
Like friends, lovers, and words on pages

He may be able to write you novels,
Beautiful symphonies of the way his heart sings for you
Putting your name on a pedestal
Covering you in tiny paper hearts
But you are no ethereal, perfect being
I am not too blind to see, we are fallible and flawed
It's not about never seeing flaws
It's about loving them anyway
You are just a person
You are not greater, or higher, than I
We coexist on the same plane
He can write you novels
But I can design perfectly put together sentences for only your eyes
Sometimes the least amount of words have the most meaning

I.
Wild and lonely skies
Reds and yellows painted on clouds
Roses on the side of our brick house
A dream that's slipped away
News of a day I'd forgotten
Still I live on for one song more
They haven't paid the rent
There is no heat
I can't afford to turn it back on
The floors are stained
The beds unmade
No matter how much I scrub
It never gets clean
They bring men home that break vases and leave hand prints on the windows
But I still lift the covers
Let them crawl into bed with me like the dishes were clean, like there wasn't broken glass on the floor
I wish this was a one night stand
I could sneak out
shoes in hand
Tiptoeing around the books on the floor
But I still live for one song more
And I slip back into him as if I'd never slipped away

II.
Wild and lonely skies
An endless loop of coffee shops and classical music and falling in love with strangers
Strange perfections and sweet echoes drip from rose petal lips
Like a dream lonely voices wake to remember

5am is for sleepless lovers
Stars beginning to fade to a purple sky
Birds awakening with song outside open windows
Wishing your body was pressed against mine
We tread on forbidden ground
The space in between our lips begging to be broken
As my hands underline the important parts of you
Hip bones
Belly button
Fingertips
You tell me “you’re so soft”
Words I’ve heard fall from the mouths of many a lover
But never has it sounded so sweet dripping from yours
5 am is for sleepless lovers
Watching eyes flutter in and out of sleep
Listening to heartbeats slow and race with every touch
Whispering truths and dreams and pretty lies
My, what a mess we’ve made
How I wish to hide in 5am with you
Away from the universe
Where sleepless lovers lie

Although this seems so new
I’ve known you for years
And while you’ve grown up a lot
Since our days of kissing on concrete
Your soul emits the same beautiful waves
That I fell in love with 5 years ago.

So as we walk around the pet store today
My heart is screaming
I love you
And the anxiety squeezes my organs into nothingness
Pouring acid through my insides
And burning until I build up the courage
To translate my internal dialogue
Into something real
Because it’s not real if I don’t say it

*I’m ready to say it

I need an archaeologist
who is willing to sift
through the rubble
of my life
and piece together
the narrative
of my existence
and brush off
the old and dusty
artifacts that
I've forgotten to
look at in years
and tell me
how to brush off the
cobwebs and spiders
without getting
bit.