"What do you do?"
An insidious question
A nice little box
To fit you inside
A stranger's first volley
Masquerading as small talk
A loaded inquiry
That seeks to define
Are you meaningful?
A failure?
Worth knowing?
Important?
Can you help me?
Do I envy you?
Or pity you instead?
What's your purpose?
Your value?
Identity?
Status?
Do I need you?
Should I hate you?
Or forget that we met

So...
"What do you do?"
I am.
As are you.

I remember well the day you died
I saw my glimmer leave your eye
The room went cold
Your heart went dry
We waited years to say goodbye

Life is but this fleeting moment
There it goes again

I think that there is nothing so vulnerable
As the moment you realize that your clothes
Still smell of the person you love,
And you feel very small,
Like a child,
Afraid to be so utterly comforted
By something so insubstantial.

Sometimes I sit here late at night
And mourn that I have not seen more beautiful things.
I must go find some, soon,
For I have used every metaphor I know of
To describe you.
I've run out, as it were,
Of lovely things to use in my constant struggle to
Do you justice,
And I must not stop.
I mean, where do you go
Once you've compared someone's mind to the Universe,
Her eyes to constellations,
Her gravity to that of a black hole
And her light to the sun?
It's really quite a challenge.
And I endeavor to meet it, day by day.
I want to find new thoughts, new ways to put it,
New things to say, better things, that soar above the miles of poetry I've already wrote to you.
I must find all the beautiful things in this world,
Every strange, wonderful trick of light,
Every exquisite shadow and corner,
For I fear that time and again I'll be running out of comparisons
Long before I ever find one that truly suits you.