Press your palms against mine,
do you feel that?
That's you
warming me up
and me cooling
you down.

That's the keys of
your fingerprints
unlocking the chest
of my ribcage.

That's me leaving my coat
at the door,
and you
wrapping your arms around me,
because you are
the most comfortable thing
I have ever worn.

That's the crescent C of my body
nestling into the cat's cradle
of yours,
my claws grazing
your two-day-old whiskers.

That's the flecks
of your freckle-covered shoulders
jumping ship
to make me captain
of the vast oceans
that roar and toss within you.

You are a lion,
beautiful and proud,
fierce with your tongue,
and strong in your gait.
King of the jungle
that lies within this dark heart,
and my stubborn head

Which constantly buts against yours,
but only so that my eyelashes
can kiss the apples of your cheeks,
because I can never
get enough of your sweetness,
no matter how hard I try.

I wanted to write a poem
to tell you exactly what I felt,
but somehow the page stayed
empty,
and I couldn't have described it better.

I want to carve my initials into the parabolas of your fingertips.
I want the etchings of your ribs caged against your flesh tattooed on the back of my hand.
I want to study the Braille of your tongue with my mouth, reading my name over and over and over.
I want to kiss your spine,
read books about your heroics and cowardice, write poems about the curve of your hair,
- stop
right there, I want to sketch you,
stretch your smile on a canvas,
capture your blinks, bends, and the Cupid's bow of your lips softly,softly,softly in pencil,
shhhh.
Let the cursive of your sleeping body tell me to stay,
nestled in the dip of an l,
the stout roundness of an o,
eternity, forever,
v's sharp trajectory calculating the distance to the moon and back, remember?
And the way two e's lock together,
pinkie swear, with all my heart,
I promise to love you
everyday, and twice on Sundays,
And only like you on Tuesdays,
but when the calendar becomes a measure of affection,
Who's to say what happens in a year's time?

We stared at the ceiling, blackened
from the absence of light,
air chilling with every breath from the A.C.,
moving closer and closer
because we thought it was what we were supposed to do, but
our electrons were sending spark signals
before our bodies even thought about touching.

Like iron and sulfur, we synthesized
moving into each other's lives,
leaving our pieces behind,
swapping stories and secrets
in the cover of nightfall,
with roaring laughter,
our heads making permanent impressions
on their downy and memory foam petals
in the garden of wishes
we created.

And I followed you to your room,
and back again,
through the drug cartels of Mexico,
to the blizzards that lie beyond The Wall.
You, my greatest adventure
showed me what lay beyond the door
I was always too frightened to open.

You earned a doctorate in my mannerisms,
becoming an expert on each temper tantrum, each shining grin
that you always brought about
on the gloomiest of Wednesdays
when I ran out of milk for my cereal
and overcooked your mac and cheese.

You embraced every flaw I had,
came to love every scar I accumulated,
thirty-eight in total,
from the others,
almost too numerous to count on ten fingers,
that left me with a sewing needle,
and a bottle of Elmer's glue
each time.

And I thought I loved you then, but
not like I love you now, because
now I wake up next to you,
I make both of us coffee, and
push open the curtains
to let in sunlight. And I wake up next to you,
I don't hate Mondays as much anymore,
Because through the valleys of your sleeping lungs
I found where I belong.

Can't you see her standing there in a white dress
that stops right under the pit of her arm?
Its white lace stark against her dark figure,
looking so inviting, so tempting,
so much so, that you want to put her on your tongue,
and taste her.

So you put her up to your lips
head first, and taste the sweet
bitterness on your mouth .
While she's resting on your pout,
you strike a match,
and light the end of her pretty, pretty gown,
breathe in deep,
take her in,
crave her like nicotine.

You're hooked,
on her and her white dresses, and the way she takes on your stress,
and makes it her own.
You puff and puff on her until she is close enough to warm your fingernails,
but carefully, you wrap her in another white gown,
before she goes out,
so the bright cherry heels on her feet
keep on dancing.

To your fingers, for holding what they couldn't keep.
To the eyelashes I peeled off your cheeks wishing for something better.
To your lungs, for caging a red sparrow with clipped wings.
To the fingernails that tried to scratch off the chips on my shoulders.
To your lungs, for making them forget what air tastes like.
And to you, for only giving you ash in exchange for cigarettes.

I wonder if my lover truly knows me.
I wonder if he knows that I'm made of sand,
and will slip through his fingers
if he lifts me too high.
                                    I wonder if he knows
that my caverns
contain oceans
that get every sailor drunk
each time they kiss my shores.
                                                      Does he know that I'm made of sugar?
That I'll crumble under the slightest touch,
but that he shouldn't be afraid
to stick his tongue out,
and taste me?
                        Does he understand
an entire field of dandelions
exists in my head,
and scatters my thoughts
every time he exhales?
                                        Can he see that I collected my eyelashes
from fallen pine needles
because I thought it would make me
beautiful?
                   Does he get that I'm not beautiful?
Nor that I'm not magnificent,
or something to be desired?
                                                Because while he's made of marble,
I'm made from sandstone,
and sandstone gets her marks,
from whichever way the wind blows
that afternoon.