The French call an ******
"the little death"

looking at you,
(trace the curve of my neck
with your lips)

I would like to suggest-
(close your eyes and search
for the secrets of my body
with your tongue)

that is to say:
(put your hand in mine
don't let go.)

Darling,
let's die a little
tonight.

I want to dance around the room in just your shirt
and remember the way it felt to be alone with you.

♫There you were in your black dress/Moving slow to the sadness.♫

                                          (When I am too tired to move
                                                    and too lazy to think
                                             I will recall the distinct taste
                                                    you left in my mouth,
                                  imprinted on my tongue and in my heart;
like citrus
and melancholy,

like strawberries,
like fear.)

at any moment the reality that I have spent my life creating
will collapse into a thousand pieces, blanketing the ground
in fragments (of desires
that have lulled me to sleep at night with the hum of half-formed expectations)
only to be replaced with an undefinable hybrid emotion;

equal parts loss and anticipation.

I find my words inappropriately, overwhelmingly, unequivocally
inadequate
to describe something that could mean
everything &(or) nothing at all.

This is the way that you make me feel.

in the same way
that a drowning man
wants air;

violently, desperately &
without reservation.

(That is to say)

I need you.