You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever.

Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. There are days when I can hear my bones straining under the weight of despair, this madness that erupts like an earthquake when I feel you lost. This heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until there are none. It is a mortal danger, perhaps not to life in a strict sense but mortal still, for I know very well my soul would harden and never be the same if I lose you.

But think not for a minute this is despair's babble, even in my seldom moments of calm and lucidness and peace I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than ever mine or someone else's. I want to deserve you, for I have to love you E, I have to love you. It matters not this wound that burns like two, it matters not that I search for you and I do not find you, even as the nights go by and I do not have you.

I knew he was dying
I thought maybe a few weeks left
So still and so quiet
This man whose laugh made us all laugh
The man who always had ideas
Where to go, what to do for a laugh
Always a laugh
Sharer of adventures
Partner in crime
For thirty-six crazy years
Dying before my eyes and
Taking much of my life with him

He'd had a massive stroke a year earlier
They said he'd die then
But he defied them and recovered a lot
Proper conversations and learning to walk
Then they discovered that he had cancer
And here we were five weeks later
"How long are you gonna be in here?" I asked
He turned his head and looked hard at me
"I die next week," he said
As though he had an appointment

He got three days, not a week
I cried seeing him dying
But I was relieved for him when he did
Now my old friend is gone
And it's a duller world without him

                                       By Phil Roberts

.
You've asked me how can I see a future when love, in all
Its numinous beauty, is waning?
I reply, the immortal stars still shine above the veil of clouds.
You say, why are the salmon swimming to their pools of origin
Only to die as they spawn?  Only to die?
I tell you their love is unconditional, like mine.
You ask me did the giant sequoia know it was shelter for the burning grasses
When they walked from the seas?  I reply yes they knew.
You question me about the lofty snow cranes that fly over the Himalayas
And I reply by describing
How the priestly flocks, chanting on their mission, honk—
Announcing the mantle steps to the heavens.
You inquire about the elephantine manatees gracing the shallow banks
And wonder if the sea mermaids remember their lives beyond the latitudes
Of capricorn and cancer?
Or you’ve discovered in the wind a new reasoning as to why
The talons of the paired eagles lock in midair as they court?
You want to understand the nimbus garden, ocean slate, of lake Titicaca
Where resides the Andean sea horse gliding above the clouds?
The whales that circle dance in unison collecting krill?
The noetic display of the birds of paradise, the songs of nameless creatures
Playing in the wilderness like a forgotten melody only lovers lips remember?

I want to tell you that true love knows this, that life in its
Prismatic shimmer is all the myriad colours of infinite existence wrapped
In time to the sublime structure of white and bones.  I must tell you
That the flower is mighty in its opening, the humming bird is a sorcerer
Who needles ambrosia with vortex wings weaving his way to the Gods.

But I am nothing beside your disbelief which has arrived, before
I can even imagine the sweet awakening, like doom, my shell is the iridescent
Hollow of the one eyed Abalone, discarded in the deep fathoms
Of the ocean pressures.

I swim the tides as you do, investigating
The endless tendril seas,
And in my chest, during the night, I woke up empty,
The only thing treasured, a golden face
Trapped inside my dreams.

                                                        ­­­          
                                                             ­­                       — after Neruda

I want my words to be beautiful.
Beautiful like yours.
I want to see ordinary things,
Find the magic in them,
And put the magic on a page, for everyone to understand.

I want to have a way with words.
I want every poem of mine
To become a masterpiece.
Just like yours.

I am not broken.

But you are.

You see the world through pain,
And pain makes the colors brighter.
It makes the value of feelings
Climb higher.

Sometimes I wonder
If I should be broken like you
If I want my words to resonate
Like yours.

Sometimes I wonder,
If it will be truly worth it
In the end.

I wonder what it will be like,
To cut myself up to pour out the beauty inside me.

Just like you.

I imagine that you
Raise the blade
Slice your feelings open
And write your masterpiece
In red.

The silence you clothe yourself in will become a second skin. You will work hard to remove it. You will scrub yourself raw until the sweet scent of orange blossoms replaces the lighter fluid that has seeped into your pores.

When you finally tell someone, you will be drunk. It will be 2 a.m. You will tell your parents, it will spill out of you as you hover over the toilet. Your secrets mixed with ***** and something sour, something burning, something permanent. It will feel good, to flush the pain out of your throat.

It will be hard for you to be intimate. When you talk to that boy in your English class, you will feel butterflies for the first time in months, those same butterflies whose wings were clipped that night last July. You feel the butterflies, yes, but you will cringe when his hand brushes up against your own.

When that same boy asks you out on a date, and he opens the car door for you, you will want to run. You will feel the air in your lungs combust when he kisses you. You will think he is trying to draw blood when he bites your lip.

You will wonder if he can he see the bruises and fingerprints that still stain your nakedness

You will not believe him when he says “I love you”

When he asks why you never want to touch him, why you talk in your sleep, why your chapped lips are a graveyard eroded from the salt streaming down your cheeks, you tell him everything.

You do not cringe when he tries to hold your hand this time.