From this place
With my head on your chest
And your hand wrapped over my arm
I've only ever seen
Half of anything.
Half of the movies
Half of the cartoons
Half of the bedroom
Half of the sky
Half of the sunset
Half of everything;
With my shoulder always blocking one eye.
But I see your hand there with that eye,
And I feel your heartbeat under my cheek
I hear your breath
Smell your skin;
And the half of everything
Of anything
Is made whole
From this place
With my head on your chest.

Everyday the mirror looks at you
It sees what you don’t
It sees what you do
Either way,
Every day,
The mirror looks at you
Everyday the mirror looks at you
It sees your amber eyes
Smoldering and wild
It sees your glistening teeth;
Your dashing pirate smile
It sees you at your worst
It sees you at your best
Either way,
Every day,
The mirror sees you nonetheless
Everyday the mirror looks at you
It steals your image like a thief
How selfish is the mirror
To cause me so much grief
How selfish is the mirror
That sees you everyday
That it will not share you
With my eyes, so far away
Everyday the mirror looks at you
Only inches from your face
From a thousand miles away
I dream to take its place
Everyday the mirror looks at you
It sees what I don’t
Oh what I wouldn’t do
If everyday
I could be inches away
And look at you too
Everyday I envy the mirror
That sees all you can’t disguise
For I’ve never felt so beautiful
As when I saw my own reflection
In those amber eyes

From the shadows where I stood
The fervor of your gaze
Cast a warmth over my skin
And the skeleton I stood with
Was reminded of its soul
And the skin that clothed it
No longer froze to my bones
And I thawed beneath the heat of your body.
The pulse from your veins
Shocked my lifeless heart
And it began to beat steady
Beneath the rhyme of your own.
There, under your spell,
I lay in peace
No longer buried
Under ice and frost
For you melted it away
With your touch and gaze.
There, you uncovered the small life,
Frail and green,
Needing a sort of sun
To mature and breathe
And it felt the rays
Of your gaze
And it felt the moisture
From your touch
And long after you left
That small life
Grew

Perhaps you never deserved me;
My forgiveness
Or adoration
Or Trust.
But I will always forgive you
Adore you, trust you;
For love is not
a graceless thing
I loved and love you still
So long as I have grace
Love you, I will.

If they loved you once a time ago
But hold only hatred for you now
May you find comfort in their contempt.
In the moments you're most alone;
In the hours you're most void of love,
Find solace in that hatred.
For someone, somewhere,
between here and there and elsewhere
Is so beside themselves
With brooding frustration
And with affection and care and thoughts of you
That only hatred can console them.
In those instances,
Do not hurt for yourself.
It is their agony that calls for counsel
Secrete your empathy
In the space between your souls
And when your moments of darkness pass
May their wounds from you heal

I miss you fondly
Thoughts of you are always brilliant,
And yellow, gold, and orange;
Soft and radiant.
I miss you wholey
And this need for you
Is not numb or cold,
It’s not hungry,
Nor thirsty or breathless,
But so fulfilling.
I miss you blessedly,
Transcendently:
As if God’s own arms
Fit around my body where yours used to
And honor me
With the most remarkable warmth.
I miss you honestly
I am truest,
And most valiant,
In the moments that I think of you.
I miss you shamelessly
Void of guilt;
Full of faith
In all you are.
But mostly,
And all too importantly,
I miss you lovingly:
The space by my side
Where you used to stand
Emptily awaits you.
The room in my heart for you
Will always be yours.
How lovingly I miss you
Oh dear friend:
How loved and missed you are

Where the airy swell of your stomach
Meets the curve of my spine
Where your wrists and ankles
Lay tangent to mine
This is all I could need
And it scares me so much,
That I'll never be happier
Than I am where we touch.

Ah, but none of them crave me
They do not feel the loneliness
Of my absence, least not
The way I feel the heaviness of theirs;
They do not crumble beneath it:
The first touch of an inevitable weight
At the nape of their neck
That has always hung
Just above the skin of their scalp
But now, having breached the space between,
Presses vindictively, coldly,
A mercenary of sheer mass

God, the weight;
The weight of this void

Look to the moon to find me
I will carve craters from
This marbled flesh and
Crush it between these ivory palms
Mold it into a tangible glow
Look up in the night and find me
Sifting down,
Down into the stratosphere
In a starlit guise
Phosphorescent and pale
Look up for a moment from
The dark depth of twilight
So that I may breathe
The warm dawn onto your cheek
I will not leave you wanting
Look to the moon to find me
My soul will find its way to you;
Your hungry heart will guide me
Look to the moon to find me

I will always love you
But I will never
"Love you too"
I will never "love you, also"
Or "as well"
Or "likewise"
I do not love you
Simply since you love me,
Because even if you didn't,
I'd love you nonetheless
So I do not love you too
I love you as I do
Mostly because, well, I just do
Just you, not too:
I love you

How glad am I that this earth does turn
For if I ever walked
Far enough away from you,
For one of my silly reasons,
I could find myself facing you again

There is much time to think
On long walks such as those
And long before I'd made my way 'round
I'd miss you dreadfully
And long before I saw your face again
I'd forget why I left in the first place