wise man once said
actions can talk while
words sit and
write sad poems
about how they
really feel and
never really confide
to you
about how you
burned what was
left of their little
hearts.
but don't worry
i think they
get the hint
when you turn
away
when all they want
is a kiss.

Never the woman,
always the other woman.
She-poets have sung of it since
they first gave words
to the wet knot of their hearts.

The consolation prize, the late-comer
who must be the one to wash his
***** hands. Not a goddess but
the amazon who presses on his
body’s weakest points. The villainess.

The other woman has no power.
He doesn’t need to know her name,
her fears, which books made her cry as
a girl. He already has his golden idol,
but he wants a clay vessel on the side.

He doles her out careful smiles under
pinkblue bar-lights or in smoky kitchens.
He tells her yes you’re beautiful
but I’ve got a better one at home still
can I see the shape you make in my bed?

And she is hopeful and lost
but finds his arm and lets herself be led.
Never the woman, but a girl who
plays games in the mud, dirties her dress,
blacks out her face, her soiled lips.

And women speak of the other woman
like she is a crow above their doors.
Watching them make their love
through greedy eyes while
nursing her barbed and tangled heart.

will you leave me in the morning
with these scars run through my head
and the only thing I’m calling
is your name across my bed

but I wait
for you
I wait
forever it seems

will you hold me when I’m mourning
with your hands upon my chest
and your touch it leaves me shaking
when you lay me down to rest

but I come
to you
I come
to the endless sea

of lovers you’ve had before
and I’ll wait on the empty shore
I’ll stay with you forever
if you’d love me just tonight

lead me out of this fear
I’m alone though you’re near
I’ve been waiting all my life
will you love me tonight?

I want to understand the steep thing
that climbs ladders in your throat.
I can't make sense of you.
Everywhere I look you're there--
a vast landmark, a volcano
poking its head through the clouds,
Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput.

I climb into your eyes, looking.
The pupils are black painted stage flats.
They can be pulled down like window shades.
I switch on a light in your iris.
Your brain ticks like a bomb.

In your offhand, mocking way
you've invited me into your chest.
Inside: the blur that poses as your heart.
I'm supposed to go in with a torch
or maybe hot water bottles
& defrost it by hand
as one defrosts an old refrigerator.
It will shudder & sigh
(the icebox to the insomniac).

Oh there's nothing like love between us.
You're the mountain, I am climbing you.
If I fall, you won't be all to blame,
but you'll wait years maybe
for the next doomed expedition.

There’s nothing to hold on to
out in the ocean.
There’s nothing to see
out in the ocean
but the ocean.
And all of the water in the ocean
can not quench your thirst.
And the miles of it
make escape futile.
It was only but a
matter of time before
I drowned.
But I saw the sunset
spread on the horizon and die like a flame
out in the ocean.
So if you are ever
out in the ocean,
wait until sunset.
It is like nothing
you have seen before.
There’s nothing to hold on to
out in the ocean.
There’s nothing to see
out in the ocean.
There I drowned,
out in the ocean.
But there I saw the sunset.
And let me make it very clear,
I would not trade that moment
for anything.
Oh, how I wish I could go back,
out in the ocean.

Take me to the river
Or the lake
On the water,
Where we can watch old men fish
And make wishes,
Sending them off
into the sun.
Take me to
where I can see the trees
on a hill
from where I lay
in a little red boat,
where frogs belt out a
Curious call,
And bare feet splash
in muddy marshes.
Where clouds shaped like sea horses
Become whales
And turtles before our eyes,
Floating on and on and on and
Ongoing if we would
only stop measuring time.
And the depths
To where my slippery sword
Slashes the ripples,
reaching beneath the surface;
Where I’ll keep my hands apart,
arms out.
So that we’ll glide and collide,
we’ll follow and lead;
our little boat dance
would go on forever,
like the reflection that earth paints for the sky.

When you’re asleep I sit in the light, studying your movements
When you’re asleep a sit in the dark, syncing my breathing with yours
When you’re asleep I lie next to you, drinking your mumbles, the sounds your stomach make, the smacking of your lips
When you’re asleep I lie awake

There is something so very special
about the perk in the curl of your eyelashes
the lifts and dimples of your cheeks
and the way your lips part like blossoming flowers in the spring
flush with pale pink color that I draw my lips closer to touch

My worries dissolve like the flutter of your eyes
as you leave our world together and travel off to your own
maybe I can visit you there, but it doesn’t truly matter
I’ve elected to stay behind with the other half of you.
And it stays so very charming, when its fingers—your fingers
wrap themselves around mine when my hands reach for yours.

Why is there something so securing, so beautiful, and so safe
about being in a tide alongside someone who’s unconscious?
you’re hardly any good here, asleep, unaware of burdens round us
you can’t even fight the spider now crawling down the windowframe
you’ll never even know he was there, had I not been here with you
I’ll take care of it, darling, and you’ll never have to know
When you’re out and I’m still here I can rise, protect both of us.

Come on little spider,
oh please do not be afraid of me and this fateful kleenex tissue

Home fort is safe again. My focus is back onto you. And your lips.
And your nose. Is it even possible to admire someone this much?
A hair is poking out of it. Maybe two even. And yet you’re perfect.
Every trait of yours a detail on an exquisite piece of art. And god no it’s not your looks.

It’s your heart, really:
the one part of you that travels to both worlds.
By day it stays mine, loving me back as I try to hide my own
translating my affections into non-misheard obsessions
keeping me safe. And painting my world beautiful.
But at night it follows you, off to lands of magic and adventure
Painting your world full of color and light, even as you lie in the dark
Such a functionally simple *****. And yet somehow I’m alive in it.

This ending wasn’t meant to make sense.