.

She called while driving

needing directions
I offered my assistance

I smiled when she said I was the best
personal GPS ever

then she smiled when she realized

all of my directions
were leading her

straight to my heart

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

I was a woman of water
A river for a body
to flow like a current.
I was meant only to sweep men off their feet.
But never do anything but slip through their hands.
Used only as something to mop up.
But I found a man made of fire.
That turned my voice into a voice.
It was no longer a trickle.
He took my rocky heartbeat.
And turned it into a heartbeat.
Then one day,
His flames turned into a fingertip.
One that caressed my jawline
And whispered to my riverside cheekbones
Telling me to become an ocean.
To drown.
Have a fierceness of a tidal wave.
To crash anyone who hurts me.
His hand touched me like a hand inside a wishing well
And I grew the size of the Atlantic.
I carried him with me, but his flames came back.
Turning me back into a river
A creek
A puddle
A girl.
I held hands with a campfire
Burnt my skin into submission
And evaporated.
Like I’m supposed to.