Do people actually fall in love?
I've never wanted to dance
in the road in a rain shower
with a man so beautiful
he makes my chest hurt.

No one has ever made
my heart skip a beat,
except when it was fear.

Do people actually fall in love?
It all seems like lust to me.
Lust is such an empty thing.
Love is supposed to be warm,
Burning hot, even.
It's supposed to make you feel full.
But lust is all I see,
Like a match,
Intense and fiery,
But fleeting.

It's not love.

do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

I am not writing to you about  how my love for you burns deep like a river
Or how I lay awake at night unable to shake the dream of us staring at the stars
Whispering our untold love expressed as wishes
And taking form of the dizzy lights in our eyes
Pushing
Pushing
Pushing
Till the words
"I love you" finally slip out
I am not writing to you about how I can only see you with hearts surrounding your ever glorified presence
And I couldn't be writing about The way my knees start shaking
My heart starts racing
And my hands can't be still when I'm around you
Unless
Maybe you feel this way too?

but you look at her
as if you just found
your new favorite thing
in the whole world
(i look at you like that too)

You call me darling, but:
Darling,  
do not call me by that name,
I could not bear it if I tried.
That word is a pyre, and I—
I do not know how to burn
well enough.

Until I can swallow your absence whole
and live,
I will not lay a hand on you:
You who call me out of my trembling cloak
Of skin and muscle and bones,
Into the lissome folds of that tender night
To meet you.

Until I can meet your gaze without encountering some
small death,
I will not try to hold you:
weightless one,
Who I could never quite grasp anyway.

Until I can kiss your lips and remember
Where you end and I begin
I will not get lost in you:
Constellation of nerves and veins and sinews,
Strewn across the stars.


I have tried to love,
weightlessly,
But my heart is still heavy, my dear.

And I have tried to love you,
desperately,
Without the heaviness of desire
or the desperation of need,
But I have lost all substance on the pyre
Of self-denial, for indemnity.

Is this a power hierarchy?
Does our dueling footwork
Convince us to
Lock into some sort of
Competitive symmetry,
Twisting into your
Mashed potato minefield with
Doo *** , doo dad laden
Dancing shoes?

Gimme your
Electronic sympathy, baby,
Infiltrate the airwaves with
Piercing eye contact and
Tremourous finger tip brushes.

Is my informality coming through?
Have I communicated with
Unlocked elbows and
Megaphone ears that not only
My body but universe
Lives here and in you?

Orient yourself to me,
I task while asking you to
Take off your straight jacket and
Stay a while. Unlock your
Pandora 's box so your
Monsters can meet mine,
Mirrored in different shades of
Shock and shame, operating under
Varied hues of the same name.

Lean into me, let your
Shoulders slender and shimmy to a
Tenderizing touch, the
Objects under your skin collapsing
To the 4/4 timed battle
Between form and perception.

The ingestion of the
Metaphor is the message, and
The tongue regards a tune
Differently than a taste.

Face symmetrical, nostrils work,
The blooming waste of consumption
Centered on the top right corner of
Your cheekbones.
I can't help but grab the
Slight upswing in the tone
Of your voice and spin it around;
Let's swing, darling.
I'd like to take your descriptors
On a date to the dance floor.

How long can we keep this up until meaning has waltzed out the door?

i don’t know how someone as small as me
with bones that break at the sight of heat lightning
and heart strings that thread apart at the sound of his voice
could make anyone feel like the sun shines brighter
through kaleidoscope eyes—
you’re okay if it brings out the freckles on your face,
and you feel good, you feel alive
you say i showed you how to love in a new way,
that i taught you to be so much more okay with your tummy,
“it’s been very freeing and life is a lot better, thank you,”
but i feel like i can’t say you’re welcome
because i am a messy cliché of imperfect scraps and hypocrisy
loosely sewn together with
“you are strong you are strong you are strong,”
but i feel so weak i feel so weak i feel so weak
and i am not steady hands, they shake like
wet dogs after kiddy pool baths,
i am flower seeds that forgot how to bloom,
trapped below the surface of a garden that feels like quicksand
and i’m sorry but you don’t see all the mistakes i make,
all the words i’ve preached that look back at me
and laugh when they see
what i feel, what i think, who i am behind closed doors,
i’m sorry.
you keep hanging medals around my neck, and
they’re so heavy, and i don’t know
what to say besides i love you
when you speak words of adoration,
but please do not praise me, i am not good.