we were twelve
when you wrote this,
handing it to me as we walked outside,
your face expressionless:

stories tell of fair maiden
of nobility and royalty and charm
yet of all surpassed true beauty expressed
of thine she is second to none.

her laughter, it shines like the moonlight,
her smile's piercing light rivals the sun,
and when in a gloom, she'll light up the room,
of this she is second to none.

i paused behind when you left,
your feet treading through the crumble of autumn,
determined, i think, not to look back
upon the confused girl
who had only read of maidens
in her story books
and could not find one in her mirror.

i sometimes wonder how far i could run.

not during a jog of leisure
or the magic of a childhood race reincarnate.
but a run where everything would matter.

if i had something to lose.
if something was chasing me.
if i was truly tested.

would the adrenaline
pulsing past my heartbeat
make me forget exhaustion?

would the world simply fade
to me and my unsteady breath,
telling legends from my lungs?

would my feet carry me
distances unmeasured, my
thoughts unraveling into stardust?

given the chance, would i fly?

my favorite love story
isn't that of romeo and juliet
or cinderella and her prince,
but of music and lyrics.

because before them,
love was just the shiver
when you touched her hand
or the sweet madness of a kiss.

and now,
love is more than alive
on the breaths of musicians
who breathe the legend in every song.

sometimes, i imagine
the sky splitting above me
in silence, then in light.

and it's been years since little boy,
but i still worry about a world
stopped in sequence.

after all,
airplanes and atom bombs
aren't so different from
burnt promises and
the cancer of a lie.

last night, you turned
and sang me a queen song,
one of your favorites.

and i thought about freddie,
and the millions of others,
and who they had sung this to,
using his words
to play on the heartstrings
of girls who love through their ears.

and i wondered if you meant them.

but instead of asking, i just listened
and kissed you on the nose.

because what else can you do
with a good old fashioned lover boy.

when i was little,
i was a thief of white paper,
multicolored markets,
and a single word.

on each sheet, i scrawled my name repeatedly,
color after color, row by row,
searching for myself in its void
until the page became a schizophrenic rainbow.

now, i fill the gaps of lined notebooks
with ink scribbles and confused monologues,
using words other than the one i was born with
until the page dims into a smeared haze.

yet somehow its purpose remains.

she said it back but she still wasn't sure.
the words just     s
                                   p
                                        i
                                             l
                                                  l
           ­                                            e
                                                            d  ­   from her lips
as they had only two times before
to others with the same questioning mouths
and nervous eyes.

because she could never navigate
the fracture of a silence
and somehow,
it made more sense for gravity
to take control
than her heart.