There's something about it,
That vast, blue wall of nothing,
That seems to stare back at you.

There's a wind in my hair
And a great, grey storm coming,
But none seem more real than the water's waves.

I stand on the end of the pier, looking down,
And those big ocean eyes stare back.
They could hold my gaze for hours.

I seem to have no stomach at all,
Yet something stirs inside it still,
Perhaps some very papery fish.

I gave my eyes to the ocean,
But I didn't expect them to sink.
I gave them and I lost them
And all you did was blink.

And the stars from the sky fell to Earth,
Like unripe figs cast from branches
By a hundred curling april winds.

Beneath a rain stricken bough
Of tumorous branch in delicate lichen
The figs sit, time sweetening their flesh.

And I might pluck a fig from the ground
And lift it up to my lips incarnadine,
Soaked already in the blood of possibilities dreamt.

Just yesterday I sat alone,
Next to a gaggle of velvet roses,
And supposed that the dry, black tides
At the petals' jagged fringes
Would surely bring a golden blush
For the next year's summer bloom.

Only now I sit surrounded,
By regret, who follows behind,
A murky shadow of tea twice-brewed,
Cursing that summer is gone, not
Bringing forth even one perfect rose,
So that I may give it to you.

I've never actually met you before,
Never gotten off of a train,
Never gotten lost in the crowds,
And never spotted you there.

I've never actually run up to you before,
Never pushed through knots of people,
Never wrapped my arms around you,
And never knocked your breath out doing so.

I've never actually heard your voice before,
Never let you hear mine,
Never heard your laugh,
And never let you hear mine.

In fact, I've never actually gotten to tell you,
Never in person, nor even
Ever shown you what it is that
I feel for you.

If only I were closer,
If only I had hugged you,
If only I knew your voice,
Perhaps only I could really tell you:
I love you.

I'd like to write you a ballad,
Or some melodramatic sonnet
About your eyes under the moon,
Or the way you set me ablaze like caffeine,
But now I'm here, I see
That real fire does not speak french,
Serenade with sweet verse, or
Court with grace and decorum.

Fire, in all its imperial decadence,
Does not care for your rules,
Expectations or etiquette,
Just so it may dance daintily in your eye.
It burns everything you'll give it,
In infernal blazes of addictive agony, and
Destroys you. But at least
It warms the soul.

Were you not so delicately certain,
Alone in September's salty rain,
I'd have you, here and now,
Your petals so golden in honey candlelight.

But I ask myself, do I really like a rose, or
Am I just caught up in the romance of the Autumnal night?

Though with such unrelenting, sharp, metal rain,
And with the widowed wind that whispers and wails,
How could anything else bring such sweet sorrows?

In all those songs, all those stories,
I see a new spring tide of blue obsession,
And foamy stallions of roses white.
I see us, you and I.

You muse in such delicate melodies,
And though my own verse is so drab,
Our minds sing in dreamy height,
Together like sunset and the birdsong.

This stream flows a lilac chalcedony,
Beneath the heavy air of summer's last figs.
And there's honey in the air: sun's light:
Sweet, intimate, and ours forever.

I speak now, plainly and honestly.
I'd burn my heart just to stay with you,
And when my soul gets lost, I just might.
Only, I don't know who you are.