i love you
everything about you

the letters you send
yellowed parchment wrapped in a red bow
they're just ink on paper
yet they're everything to me

you're everything to me

yet
i still wonder
who am i to you?

someone gave me cherry coke today
they turned to me and said
"sorry sir, thought you might want this"
it caught me off guard, sure
but who am i to say no?

CR
      A
          CK
goes the can
i inhale the sweet cherry flavor
so unlike anything i've ever had before

i've been drinking diet my whole life
why hadn't i tried this before?
it's strong yet still sorry
way more flavorful than diet will ever be

yet how do i tell people i prefer cherry
when ive been drinking diet my entire life

"oh, she loves diet
that's what she always drinks"
that's what they'll think
they won't know
i drink cherry coke

Do you know what I was, how I lived?  You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

you're all i could ever want
never romantic but you're still the one
i look at you and see who i could be

we aren't so different are we?
a couple years apart
still, you mean the world to me

do you ever look at me and think
"he's who i used to be?"
maybe i'm the strange one
for seeing me in you

cherry coke and a gender crisis,
say you see yourself in me
say i'm not imagining it