You must stop paining me like this.

Do not you know how it feels to be caught in the midst
Of a passion that will not subside?

I know that, to you, I look well and alive,
But can not you see there is no light in my eyes?
Can not you hear the sadness spilling from my voice,
As though there is a river threaded through my throat?

Either talk to me when you're wide-awake,
Or don’t talk to me at all;
For every word you speak brings blood from the wounds
That you so unconsciously invoked.

I know now why love is sent by Cupid’s golden arrow;
It’s because we are struck not once, twice, or thrice, but a million times,

And each arrow sinks deeper into our bodies than before.

Yes, you look lovely when
Your eyes ignite like little stars, when
The light hits your face like that,
Tracing, delicately, each soft lineament,
Touching your lips; yes,
Light lends you its brilliance.

Yes, you look noble in the morning sun,
With the gold dancing across your
Brow and lingering at
The finest angles, the sweetest lines;
It kisses you, thus, an angel you become—
Light turns your blood divine.

But in the murky black, in that
Depth of night, you become something else;
They snake across your skin, those thick shadows,
Sensuous and ripe— you are transformed into
A being detached from your own self,
And the gloom into rhythms you transpose.

And I love you then, when dark’s
Ink stains your skin; and I love you
When the light makes you pure.

You embrace both worlds, don them like a cloak;
You wear them with ethereal allure.

My heart beats
only
for you,
Ignorant of the torture,
The agony I face.

I do not breathe to keep myself afloat,
but simply to see you flourish
as you do;

Yes, my heart beats
only
for you.

Give me the chance
To show you how to paint the wind.
We’ll be streaked in marigold and
Calypso blue, acrylic staining our
Hands and our faces and our legs and
Our lips.

Give me the chance
To teach you constellations at night.
I’ll point them out for you, each
Star comprising Orion, or Cygnus, or
My favorite, the Little Dipper;
We can trace them all with
Our fingertips.

Give me the chance
To dance with you in the rain.
Water droplets glistening in hair,
Lashes, as we twirl silly in
These sopping clothes— still tight,
Our grip.

Give me the chance.

Give me the chance
To whisper something in your ear.
A delicate sensation, like lace or
Light embrace, my words
Fluttering into your mind like
The butterflies we caught when
We were kids.

Give me the chance
To look at you a little longer than I’m supposed to.
I’d forget I was staring and then you’d
Turn towards me and I’d turn
Mad red because I was caught, and so I’d think to myself,
“Look what you did.”

Give me the chance
To get lost in your voice.
Language becomes a different entity when you speak;
The way your words wrap around me is
Mesmerizing, and each cadence strikes some
Chord deep within me that I thought
I hid.

Give me the chance
To ensconce myself in your heart.
I know I am small, and obscure, and odd, but
You are a Divine Truth, and before you
I knew only lies, and deceptions, and a bland and colorless world which now
You have blessed.

Give me the chance
To think about you every hour of every ******* day;
My entire being revolves around your existence and
Your beauty and your overwhelming goodness and
I try to stop but
These thoughts will never cease because you are you and
I am obsessed.

Give me the chance
To love you with every fragment of my heart.

Give me the chance.

Older men are made of shadows and dark glamour,
Wearing black suits and slick shoes, and
Lips that drip sweet venom.
Between their fingers a French cigarette, the
Smoke billowing in their eyes,
Those dark, expensive eyes,
Latching onto the slender lines of
Beautiful women and cognac glasses.

Older men dance slowly when they do,
But they can do it so passionately too—
Weaving in and out of the music,
Arms snaked around waists and whispering
Into a lady’s ear,
“You are arresting, my dear.”

Wan flesh stretched thinly
Against brittle bones,
The flower of youth much
Wilted by the bitter moans
Of winter winds and
Snows, and such;
She traipses through so dimly.

The surface so ghost-like—
Sickly, pale, anemic—
Though she makes the Madness
Seem so vivid, so scenic
Against drab backroads,
Gray towns, and the sadness
That longs, aches, to strike.

And I wonder what are
Those cracks in her skin,
Violet line-art patterned on
The wan flesh stretched thin;
They creep up to her eyes and
Within moments are gone
By a blink, a single star.

Her fingers are shaking
When she tries to speak,
Like spiders spinning nervously
A web that must be solid, not weak,
To carry the weight of several—
Thus, they weave it fervidly
In a manner quite breathtaking.