i think we're both afraid.
i don't know what you're afraid of
but i'm afraid of putting my heart out on the line
it's been broken before even when i wasn't trying
and if it makes any sense i feel like if you broke it
it would be beyond repair
because i feel more for you than i've felt for anyone before
i'm afraid of telling you how i feel and you not feeling the same
not because of the rejection
but because i never let people in
and to think that i let you in only for you to decide to knock on another door
seems like too much to bear
i'm afraid because i've never done a brave thing in my life
and i can't imagine taking this step without knowing how the story ends
but most of all i'm afraid
because this could be everything i've ever wanted
and the sheer magnitude of it all
is the scariest thing i can imagine.

We make ourselves a place apart
  Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
  Till someone find us really out.

’Tis pity if the case require
  (Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
  The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
  At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
  Must speak and tell us where they are.

The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose—
But were always a rose.

my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.

your little voice
                    Over the wires came leaping
and i felt suddenly
dizzy
     With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers
wee skipping high-heeled flames
courtesied before my eyes
                             or twinkling over to my side
Looked up
with impertinently exquisite faces
floating hands were laid upon me
I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing
up
Up
with the pale important
                          stars and the Humorous
                                                  moon
dear girl
How i was crazy how i cried when i heard
                                            over time
and tide and death
leaping
Sweetly
          your voice

listen
beloved
i dreamed
  it appeared that you thought to
  escape me and became a great
  lily atilt on
  insolent
  waters    but i was aware of
  fragrance and i came riding upon
  a horse of porphyry    into the
  waters i rode down the red
  horse shrieking    from splintering
  foam caught you clutched you upon my
  mouth
listen
beloved
  i dreamed    in my dream you had
  desire to thwart me and became
  a little bird and hid
  in a tree of tall marble
  from a great way i distinguished
  singing and i came
  riding upon a scarlet sunset
  trampling the night    easily
  from the shocked impossible
  tower i caught
  you strained you
  broke you upon my blood
listen
  beloved i dreamed
  i thought you would have deceived
  me and became a star in the kingdom
  of heaven
  through day and space i saw you close
  your eyes    and i came riding
  upon a thousand crimson years arched with agony
  i reined them in tottering before
  the throne and as
  they shied at the automaton moon from
  the transplendant hand of sombre god
  i picked you
as an apple is picked by the little peasants for their girls

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

in the rain-
darkness,     the sunset
being sheathed i sit and
think of you

the holy
city which is your face
your little cheeks the streets
of smiles

your eyes half-
thrush
half-angel and your drowsy
lips where float flowers of kiss

and
there is the sweet shy pirouette
your hair
and then

your dancesong
soul.     rarely-beloved
a single star is
uttered,and i

think
       of you

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
Life would be delight,—
But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,—
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.