I woke up in her arms
from a slumber of one thousand years.
All that survived through my hazy dreams was my name
and the vague smell of morning dew
and reinvention.
Her shoulders softly ***** down to her naked waist,
but before I can feel her all the way up
Her lashes, like black lace shutters, lift.
I take this sweet moment before she wakes
To watch the way morning-light makes gold out of her skin.
With my lips to her forehead,
I recalled the sounds and images of our *******
and the way we crash down after,
sometimes side by side, like children who’ve played to their limit,
but often one atop another, like lovers who’ve collapsed amidst the fog of their own intoxicating devotion.
Every divot or dimple in her skin is another hiding spot
for a little imaginary love note.
Her black eyes to me are like a dark room, where she takes me
when she wants me alone.
My eyes are blue like the sheet we found ourselves under
the first time I allowed myself to taste that subtle pout
and the sweet, wet innocence of her kiss.
As I watch her rise and dress,
shyly slipping cotton over her sacred curves in this white-gold morning light,
I believe I know her better than she does.
I can tell by the way she pauses to look at me and smile
that she knows me better than I ever will.

Let me worship you, my beautiful angel.
Don’t feel those heavy sounds while you’re in this with me.
Wake up brand new in my arms,
every morning that you love me.

What I mostly want to do
Is run my hand down the length of her naked body,
warm with the moonlight that radiates from the center,
going in and out with the perfect slopes that she has grown
just by living.
She is the front pocket of my jeans,
She is my hair that shelters my back,
She is an aura, present
but blended like charcoal.
If you splattered her colors on my grayscale
I would not mind.
They are the undertone to every stroke of my arm,
the backdrop,
the forefront,
enveloping me from the front and behind
So high off my fumes
that she thinks I am a good person.
I won't stop her,
because hopefully by the time I am finished loving her
Down, around, and inside that body
I will be.

I was standing in front of my bureau when it hit me
That I need you,
but not like that.
I need you like a florist needs the fans of ballet dancers,
someone to come by and love him in winter.
I'm only noticing now that your voice is chocolate syrup with a scrap
of sandpaper thrown in,
with just enough of a drop of ****.
I need you like some people need bubble tea,
a pop inside of me that feels sweet and unexpected
and thought I've never tried it,
I'm sure it feels like your tongue working on mine
and the imprint of your cool lips
while I hurriedly kiss you at the crosswalk.
Do you know that when you go home
I still feel the ghosts of your arms around my waist
and the cover of your touch,
like wings on my arms?
I need you like a rock needs moss,
because I don't--
but picture the two separated, and tell me
what is the point?
And how inconvenient it is that these were not made together,
that they had to seek one another out,
and how fortunate it is
that they fused,
******* soft,
color on grey,
creating a pattern of earth, like the Earth
a cohesive package of everything,
all at once.
I need you like I need me.

Her name is Kayleigh.

Her name is Kayleigh, and
last night I let a rush of hot water strip her kisses from the side of my neck.
I smiled to them as they fell down the drain because I knew that there would be more.  
Being by her side used to help me sleep, but these nights I'm staying awake
because in the smallest upward curve of her lips I can see, I can taste
that reality is kinder than our dreams.
I want to sing in her ear, then bite it.
I spin a hundred poems for her,
and then I provoke in her the anger that comes with being woken up by a playful jab to the side of the rib--
and it never ceases to amaze me how she still invites my arms around her. It makes me laugh.
I asked my skin that glowed with the shadow of her touch,
Is it supposed to feel this good to love?
The lingering scent of her in my bed told me yes,
And I trust it as I have trusted her,
because she is not afraid.
I will go where she goes.
I will kiss her out of every bad dream;
I will still want her when I have everything;
And I will savor the gift that it is to call her Kayleigh

Kayleigh, because she is my Kayleigh.

True story:
I walked down the sidewalk with a stranger,
and the thought crossed my mind
that I could love her.

I had my eyes closed and my arms outstretched
to a vision of her in the dark.
She was gone by the time I reached her.
There is a note that plays on an old slide guitar every time she leaves me
and when I am alone after that I think first of her hair,
second of her hands,
third of her quiet breath on my back in the middle of the night.
With a soft brush I stroked a steady line of light onto a black canvas and it was her.
During the small moment when she opens the front door and I first look at her face,
I am aware of something of profound importance
but right now I'm not sure what it is.
I want to breathe a strong gust of peace into her so she feels it low in her chest
and I want to watch her eyes open to a world that's simple,
that loves her.
There is such a thing as torment
And yet there is such as thing as her arms around me,
her hands on my back, and
I wonder if she knows that when she kissed me I felt a new meaning to the word
Home.
I didn't know it was possible for her to look at me that way, so
I want to call her Sweetheart
because her heart is a sweet place
where I found something that was mine before I had to ask for it.

Let me know when it's alright for me to love you
Because the next time I see you, baby I'm going to take you
Home.

I want to talk to you.
Driving over a fresh carpet of snow, this is a mix of belting Joni Mitchell
and shouting ****!! as I say a quick prayer
and slam on the brake.
Being an individual today.
Having an imagination today,
that took me so close to you that
it scared me.
I want to talk to you.
Today I described to somebody
the way you dance.
Laughing, I described to somebody else
how you make me smile
and to the same person
how ridiculous this is.
Girl I need an instruction manual to handle you.
I want to talk to you for no good reason other than that I do.
Today I worried and I clawed at my face
and a donation box outside of a Starbucks made me think of you and soften my eyes.
Easy
frightening
a little bit out of control
My legs felt weak in the shower today after months of flying me over to you.
I will give them a rest for a while.
I want to talk to you.
I climbed up a poem as if completely vertical while I was waiting.
It ******. It was hard.
Kiss me.
(I'm sorry, that was rather forward.)
You are a deep bass note hitting hard in the back of my ribs.
I will chase you down a side street, tripping on bricks,
Soaking in the rich autumnal breeze,
mouth aching from smiling too long,
and after I catch my breath from laughing
maybe I might
--not saying anything concrete--
kiss you.
But all I ask of you tonight,
all I can earnestly implore with a distant vision of clutching your hand
is that we talk.

I'm not old to love, but I'm not new to it either
And girl,
The things you do to me.
When your arms are around me I feel a warmth in my core like drinking hot tea too fast.
Oh the way you squeeze me,
Tease me,
Finally appease me
When I feel your hand ease into mine.
Girl you said you've got ****,
But if you think I can't carry it
You don't know **** about me.
I'm not in love with your past.
I don't want to hold you for your exes,
I don't want to kiss your lips for a lingering taste of tobacco
I want you
You, being your skin, your hair, your legs and arms and center
The buoyancy of your laugh,
The clarity of your smile,
Your ability be happy
In a world that does these things to you.
Oh but girl the way you wear me,
Tear me,
Take your time and share me
Makes me want to scream-- but
I feel it from my head to my toes, even if it doesn't have a name, even if I'm not allowed to name it,
It follows me out the door every morning
It puts me to sleep every night
And somehow something so bizarre
has never felt so right.

I have a soul that bleeds on the open floor.
I feel the sadness in a night full of laughter, art, the city
The city
Where I've fallen for the confidence that comes with anonymity.
Sometimes the desire crops up to just go out alone,
or to look at a bright light
and think about you, and how right you feel.
There was a time when my life was a trap
There still are times when I feel that friendship is an illusion
When I feel so isolated that I want to ride a train to the end of its line, but then what
And I think about the first time you let me into your heart
on the steps of a Harvard registrar's office
so far in the dead of night that only ghosts of empty shuttles could be heard.
Sometimes I'm not quite sure if I've had a friend
Sometimes I feel like worshipping love
And sometimes when we're together
and you hold me
and I hold you
and we sleep,
the gentlest stroke of your thumb on my arm is enough to tell me what love is,
For I've found it standing earnestly before me,
eyes peeled,
soul open in the spiral steam of her breath that rises in the December air.
Girl, look at this for what it is
Everything it is, and tell me if it's too soon
to say I love you.

I just want you to know
That you're beautiful.
I love your deep purple combat boots, and
How you dance in your striped party tie to old school rap in the failed laundry room rave of twenty-thirteen.
Every time we talk alone together
I feel like I am about to kiss you.
I think it's **** that you used to smoke,
I think it's sexier that you quit
And I like those weekends when we gravitate into your bed,
I like it more when you don't want to get up.
I love your grunge and your ***** clothes,
And your vulnerable side, whose head, when it rears, is welcome to my chest at any time of day.
It feels nice to be falling in love with you,
It feels nicer when I feel you falling for me.

The whole time we were together I was yelling to you in my mind
to kiss me.
I don't understand it myself,
but it's electric
and I love it!

I'll take a poem for you, if that's what you want.
I cannot give you much else.
Around you I feel higher, brighter;
The natural gravity between your arms
and me
It's like being a child again,
the tough skin of your palm on mine
brings me to a place of content like
a tree that finally goes orange,
Or a door that clicks behind us when we escape the brisk city night.
I want to hold you.
I don't care for the **** thing, but
I care for the cozy thing, and
I want to melt into you when the sun goes down.
We don't have to tell our friends, no;
You can kiss me when nobody's looking.
You can squeeze my hand when this city seems just a little big for us.
Why don't you have me over
when nobody else is home?
We'll start with the jokes, the anecdotes, the stories,
and I'll sit closer,
I'll look into your dark eyes.
You'll let your knee touch mine
just so gently, the way you do, and
maybe you'll tell me what I've been dying to hear
since day one.
You're what I want, girl.
But maybe at another time.
Maybe in another world.

Je déteste que je t'aime
Mon chère, mon nightmare
I wish I didn't.
Je voudrais que tu oublier
Ce que tu as pensé
And I want you to look at me for what I am,
nervous,
et pour ce que j'aurai
la douleur exquise.
Pardonnez-moi mon amie,
In fact close your eyes, block your ears
I don't want you to hear parce que
L'autre soir, je ne plaisantais pas
quand j'ai dit que je veux vous tenir
ce soir,
chaque soir,
and if you'd like to, you can be la grande cuillère.
You can pick it all up like the weight of words on your chest,
you can put it all down in the morning.
étais-je mets ici, tout près de toi
pour une raison?
We're speaking in codes,
Do you know that your name looks comme une œuvre d'art
I want to paint it up my ribs and on the inside of my cheek
et je veux le dit pour tous.
De rire avec vous.
De prendre tes cheveux dans mes deux mains et remercier quelqu'un, anyone
for this.
It's only une rêve.
Mais après les blagues et l'anormalité de nos vies
Tout ce que je veux dans ce monde maintenant,
est d'embrasser vos lèvres,
et dire
You are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.