I know you still can't breathe
And your ribs burn
But I love it
When I finish laughing first

Because for a moment
I am the insomniac
Enthralled by the lucid dreamer
(your eyelids flutter)
I am the Catholic
Entranced by the shameless drunk
(your hiccups slur)
And your giggles pop like
Bubble bath and boiled syrup

And everything is funny
Everything is spine-chillingly funneled
Your sprite and shrieks nosedive
Into my bloodstream
Spike my heartstrings
And your cheeks
Swell and splotch and squish
Into those sparkling eyes
Until they gush

And you try to stop it, but
Like gagging on lake water
You can't
Not until every sprinkle gets spewed
And baby, there is so much
So much beauty
Spawning inside of you
So much to share, and I starve for it
I soar with it

And for a moment
A dreamer stirs the city
A drunkard saves the world
The children stump the wisemen
As you shake the cobwebs
From your ribs

For one more second
Reality is fragile
Love is tangible
And nothing else is

No matter how I try, it’s tough
To give up on the notion
That I am at the hub, and things
Revolve me in predicted motion
Since evidence suggest that you
Are funneled through, per se,
My heliocentric point of view
To form the milky way

---

Time after time, it all comes down
To my unshaken, firm refusal
To dig the dust of my own past
And face my own accusal
My fetal limbs still probe and poke
The sheathing warm placenta
As if to perforate some stars
In skies of deep magenta
I’ve never felt so hugely-small
So focused and off-centered

---

I pleaded once, I begged you twice
A third time I implore
To stow your truth away from mine
If possible, in different drawers
Since neither of us knows the dose
That let us sleep at night

---

You
Simply do not
Understand
Just how much
I am
Right

---

I swear, I’m just a laborer
When all is said and done
Who drones on towers that adorn
The banks of Babylon
My breath is getting shallower
With each brick laid in place
My words like sweat evaporate
As I inch out to space
Without this nuisance of a tongue
This need to comprehend
I might have been a god like you
And we could make amends

---

When used alone, the reason fail
In quelling arguments
Like throwing stones into the sea
To form a continent
As reason is perspective prone
And tethered to a soul like strings
To bridge the gap, souls must align
To form the sturdy anchoring

---

Even if
Glued back to back
We both refrain from blinking
And even if
The world will turn
And we just let all sink in
And even if
A compass draws
Trajectories into conclusion
This revolution
Will sum up
to yield the same degree

Three hundred
Sixty
And a bit

Is all that we can see

---

You say

“How lucky are we to be in love”

And I say

In toil, and sweat, and dedication
In devotion, humility and sacrifice
In the will to grow and change together

There is no luck

To call it luck is to believe in
An unseen guiding hand
Sketching fates out of a whim

To call it luck is to say
That the universe funneled us together
Carried like leaves on its
Roaring cascading surge

It is like shuffling all cards
Back to suites laid in ascending order
And drawing from the top the queen of hearts

And how can that be as magical

As wonderful

As two people, that choose to
Unravel their old selves
Then embrace, and meld together

To fashion a new whole