I have never been to Alaska,
nor have I extended any effort to know its beauty.
It seems too isolated and idealistic to house such an alluring landscape of frozen and serene natural monuments,
ones that often plaster post cards at my local office.

You are a similar beauty.
Your azure eyes.
Your silvery voice.
Your vermouth lips.
The shape of your legs spread on my coffee table.
Fantasies I have over the way you study me so deeply in nearly vacant cafes during the magic hour we seem to spend there so often.

You carry this grace that hides the messy and yet bottomless complications of an intelligent soul.
And as with Alaska, I could visit if you weren’t so frozen.
So stagnated by worldly conditions.
Ones that cannot be simply overcome.

So don’t ask me what I want.
I fear too often that I might expose the extremes of which I would venture to visit you.
The willingness to feverish warmth,
so that it might slow to soften our time spent in each other’s heads.

I awoke in Paris with the former lover of my earlier days spent in long sectioned tiles with alternating patterns of faded neon luster.

Her tight expression seemed almost repeatingly rehearsed, while she spoke to say, “Juniper is the breath, and the gin we sipped just wasn’t strong enough to wash this bitter taste from the edges of my mouth.”

So it was, a fixated intent to claim a world without command of the lingering nights we spent in that small apartment.

Evenings drawn through observing yellow-tints reflecting through stained prismatic windows dancing along the corner of 3am.

“****” I exclaimed, as if I didn’t know the distance of our hands in that moment and what it truly meant t

Innocence and luster,
Starlight evenings spent over sapphire-light,
To feel so vulnerable, if human, is too easy a task with fabled connection.

Numb this avalanche of echoed virtues and marshmallow dreams,
Leave a slow wish that a tortoise might uphold for 100 years more,
Leading the flow of empathetic exchange to graze purple mountains,
Collapsing entirely to turquoise streams with tears across our forgotten faces.

Elegant necklaces of azure-tinted mist litter our fictitious musings,
These places of unimaginable distance and scale too well known,
Producing what could be a dew of anticipation and mystery too delicate to engage.

Shower our fated fictional meeting with the evening gloss,
One to die with the leaf that touches the ground last at autumn’s end.
Princess Luna release my heart, I do not wish to know this loss,
Vermouth, a name given to the color stained upon what cannot transpire.

sweet blue dreams.
how I miss the feel of your shoulder
pressing in on my worn frame.
I am not a crow, and I won't linger.
yellow dusted windows and faint scratches.
you are but a simple muse to me now.
cracked faded pages.
ever driving. ever haunting.
my heart is shallow and full of red flowers.
I am not a lover of many words,
but those contained within this
nimble writing are yours and yours alone.
where is your face.
if I could stare into it one last time I'd bloom.
combust into brilliant primary colors.
you were a brief encounter on a large whim.
what are you now.
a poet.
a lover.
the latter would rip me in two.

hearing those fragile words.
i had never felt more seen.
more felt than in that moment.
i was really just a gentle stir in many nights.
for many women.
but tonight, felt honest.
tonight, had become a separate charring entity.
it filled our conversational air with a breath of warm life.
one I had long since forgotten.
it was almost combustible.

I could melt into you.
on any day.
in any temperature.
let me be your shade.
your relief.
the 20 minutes before your class starts.

the way you steep in cool rain.
give me all your small thoughts.
form me in clay.
scatter me as if I were made of leaves.
throw me into the nearest river.
drown me.
drown with me.
for one moment.
no.
more.
please let this be more.

to the girl who sits across the room,
I see you.
I see the way you lean in your chair,
and the books your carry in with you.
I see how long your hair is,
and how your eyes carry weight in every glance.

to the girl who sits across the room,
I hear you.
I hear your thoughts ring brilliantly,
and the way you speak so softly.
I hear your words in slow motion,
and wish you could say more,
if only to me.

to the girl who sits across the room,
i'm thankful for the hours we spend,
seeing. listening. feeling each other's presence.
I want more time with you. Eternity even.

I have never tenderly missed a moment quite so.
the way your lips wrote love notes across my neck.
my breath became shallow and frequent.
i had vision in it's most narrow form.
seeing you only for what you were.
you were sweet.
gentle.
grace personified, but scared.
Scared to lose yourself in another's world.

i am still here.
world in all.
waiting for your collision to bring about a cataclysm.
one of sweet embraces and absolute terror.
I am so scared to love you.
I am so scared to feel your touch again.
for when I do,
I know that I will never again be able to live without it.

this is the compilation of every laugh.
our Sunday walks.
moments spent in cities we explored.
all the paintings we glimpsed together.
meals shared with crooked enjoyable smiles.
tiny slight brushes of our hands searching for one another.
thoughts, brilliant or otherwise.
everything we once were.
everything we were going to be.
this is all that's left of us,
sealed in iconic black lettering.

there's a wake in this morning.
and restless souls to observe it.
a time stagnant.
an age unpredictable.

there is an early morning for us.
and our chipped coffee mugs.
a brightly washed kitchen table.
and a subtle nod to this worlds beauty.

your hands are so soft.
will they meet mind across the walnut veneer.
my glasses are crooked and so are yours.
how many moments are left in this.

and if my mind shall wonder again.
this will all disappear in a dim haze.
between the resting light smothering your face and the way you call for me.
I will fall in love with our moments.
once again.

I don't love you.
I suppose I'll have to tell myself that.
For days.
For years.
For eternity.
For the lost love we shared on that street.
And all our saturated days together.
I don't love you.
Even now it's a lie.
April. Warm up my bitter heart.
Let this dreary snow rest in ribbons of warm sunlight.
I don't love you.
You are the sun.
And the snow will fade slowly into soft steam.
And fall again when the sun meets it's end.
Then, I will stop loving you.
I might.

I'm too loud.
And quiet.
And a list of other descriptions.
I want to see the lake.
The last morning together.
You're so warm.
I feel as though you're my sunflower,
And I won't pick you.
I won't ruin your beauty.

What a warm afternoon.
What a thorn you've become to my brittle heart.
Our mustard yellow tent is torn.
Our eyes cannot meet again,
For they're fixated on the horizon.

What an evening.
A beautiful moment.
What time are we?
Grow dim with me in this evening fog.
This memory is fading slowly.
You have no color left.
We have no moments left.

you lit up that dim, dreary corner of my favorite bar so well.
breathed new life into the beaten oak that showed key shaped serrated scars.
i beckoned for more drinks and you sat still.
i raved about the symmetries we shared in our interests.
a quiet smirk appeared on your rose colored lips.
i'm a quiet admirer.
a subtle suitor.
a ****** man wishing to **** the rest of my life away for a drink more near you.
i want more small conversations with you.
small words only we share.
in a shrunken room full of drunken slurred drink orders and half meant compliments.
i want you to see me, more than anything I have ever wanted before.
i'll give every poem I've ever written, if I could just remain here a bit longer with you.

I wish you were just a pretty face.
a beautiful girl with no thoughts.
maybe then I wouldn't crave you,
your thoughts and emotions.

I wish we met in summer,
and that months hadn't turned to years so quickly.
my youth returns when I stare in to you,
reflecting an ivory lining around your heart.

my thoughts are simply ours,
years apart.
whiskey won't numb this.
time won't let me forget,
the feeling in that rain.
how for a short hour you were able to possess my juniper heart, brittle and sweet.

if you could saturate my days so easily,
i'd wish to see the sky through your eyes.
feel your lips pressed upon my skin.

so I won't leave easy,
and we won't speak until our feelings are heard.
through presence alone.