see it’s never quite the way it is
in the beginning of everything,
that desperate, urgent discovery of
one another’s every facet,
paragraphs of conversations
that never seem to cease,
& you’re both a little obsessed
& then you’re the only one still hooked
because there will always come a settling
when being in love becomes a fact of existence
instead of a phenomenon,
when things
change.

i hate the way i want you,
every minute & always.
i hate waiting for a sign
that i’m not the only one still jonesing.
the mornings come in cold
as they drown my dreams,
dreams spent reminiscing
your angel lips.

& call me madness but i swear that
if i took a blade to my skin tonight,
desire would pour from those blue, ebbing veins
resting beneath my wrists,
all that wanting
bleeding out & puddling
on the floor.

some days, i feel sick with loving you,
body tense & aching.
why does everyone associate love with the heart
when i feel it deep in the recesses of my stomach,
the gory bits inside me twisting with a hunger
nothing else can soothe.

wanting breaks over me in waves,
the crushing knowledge that i crave you
maddeningly, the rush of your fingers tripping down
my spine, your listless, brimming
heat, those indefinite
probing
eyes.
would you hold me like it hurts
not to?
would you sit with me until our minds coalesce
with the passing of time & certainty?

tell me, how does it feel to be the focus of my
desperate tunnel vision?
you have left every cell of my body intoxicated
with longing,
touched the scars of my skin as if
they are the most beautiful marks
i posses,
loved me with all your fervor & complexity.

the manic nights mean lying terribly awake in sweat-soaked sheets,
sleep evades & the only racing thought that pervades is
i need you
which scares me to breaking,
to think that i am only whole
in having you,
but there is a space within me
& you are the missing piece.

one in the morning.  i’m on the second bottle of cheap red wine & am smoking my third cigarette in the last hour.  fourth time writing you a letter.  so far, there are only five words on the page: why did you ******* leave? in six hours, my mother’s shrill alarm will rouse her & she’ll come to my bedroom to ask why i’m awake so early.  i won’t mention why it’s seven in the morning & i haven’t fallen asleep yet because that sort of thinking only leads back to you.  there are eight razorblades remaining in the package beneath my mattress.  now, i have nine gashes on my wrist, nine more good reasons i still need you.  it’s been ten days since you hung up the phone & left me to wallow in empty static.  eleven since i whispered my first “i love you” in your ear.  the clock on my wall hits all twelve numbers twice a day, same as always even though time has lost all semblance of meaning.  here’s the deal: i’ll you give you thirteen more unlucky days to come back to me, but if you’ve left for good, i’m gone.

some days i wish i smoked less & laughed more, that my hair was longer & caught sunlight in its dull strands, my smile less irreparably crooked, my body softer & sweeter to sink into.  that fictional characters whose stories end in tragedy didn’t bring me to tears.  that i was something easier to love.  
these days, i clutch at my skin with virulent self-hatred & try to be different.  these days, i am not much of anything at all.  these days, i am not worth loving.
but other days, i imagine dying my hair a ridiculous color & piercing my bottom lip, wearing a lot of grungy clothes & getting ****** out of my mind every morning.  i think of asking for crayons & a children’s menu when you take me somewhere expensive for dinner to see if i embarrass you.  of making love to you in front of a big-picture window & not caring who might see.
honestly, i don’t care if you disapprove of me.  maybe i don’t love myself enough, but i have at least enough self-respect to never change for your benefit.
i don’t care if you think i’m unattractive or childish.  i don’t intend to live long enough for looks or acting my age to matter much.  someday, you’ll find a girl who is perfectly pretty, who takes good care of her body, who doesn’t always make you think so much.
me, i like myself a challenge.  all sharp angles & rough edges.  unsure of whether or not you’ll stick around to find out what lies beneath the exterior.  me, i’m i & that is enough.  for now.

even after all this time, your still, quiet form slumbering beside me never ceases to amaze me, those long eyelashes, longer than the length of my thumbnail, fluttering against my cheek still make my heart quiver, the essence of you lingering on my lips hasn’t failed to stay sacred to me.  all this time & the simple happenstance of your perpetuate presence warms me to the core.  i cannot, have not, will never take you for granted, not when your soothing silence is as captivating as when you speak, not when you are the most breathtaking discovery i continue to make day by day by day.  you have taught me how to savor, drink my coffee in slow sips sluicing down my throat, the pauses between swallows made for languid eye contact with you.  you have laid me down & loved me to breathy, shivering pieces, we have charted the topography of one another’s bodies with needing fingers, a little more “touch me” than i knew i could feel.  my head always races in labyrinthine circles but you slow it to a halt with your lips & skin & brimming heat.  i mean, maybe i’m a little broken, maybe even a lot, but with you, i don’t mind so much anymore.

my god, i want you
with such startling intensity
it frightens me,
to think i might have left pieces
of myself lodged in your skin
when i held you so tight
& darling,
i’m a live wire,
branding you to the core
with unashamed desire,
i have no apologies
for the way you ignite me.

never did i expect anyone
to illicit this response,
a chemical reaction coursing
from synapse to synapse,
you are infinities beyond any substance
i’ve ever tasted,
no formula able to replicate
the way it feels
with your lips pressed against
my skin.

you have laid me down
& loved me,
coaxed sounds from my throat
i didn’t know i had within me,
learned my body with an urgency
that left me breathless,
taught me not to be afraid
of your eyes upon me
undone.

&
oh, my love,
my love,
my
love.

so now i am forever imbued with the salt of sweat from your skin, the scent of you lingering, potent & pure, heavy on me long after our comings & goings.  our love has been made here in this bed where i lay my head to sleep at night, sheets tangled in a shambled aftermath.  i know what it is to have you now & this only leaves me wanting more, wanting you, every inch beneath my lips, i cannot get enough.  nothing is more beautiful than your breath un eve n, sweet against my neck, & your body on mine.  i feel every cell of your being react when i touch you, a poetry of flesh on flesh, the catalyst to a breathless finale.  lying naked there beside you, your palm grazing my stomach, cuddled close to the cocoon of your warmth, i am bliss.  you & me are we is us is one & i am finally waking.