I fell in love with you in metaphors. Having never seen you, but reading every word you write.

The way you dangle your participles, naked and raw, yet still soft and round, then casually leave unfinished sentences as if to say, please, finish me as you will

You tempt with your soft parentheses, tightly wrapped around my waist, the words they squeeze rubbing up against the curves

Your similes, a sideways smile, like the cat, canary gone, pull me closer until your delicate punctuation is so warm, so wet, I can feel it pressed against me, you alliterate, such sweet surrender, so sublime, and I succumb

I want you now in rhyme, in verse, in prose, in  sweet haiku

     'where in so few words
you trace the shape of my heart
         and then (somehow) paint its hue'


I fell in love with all your metaphors, the way your sentence structure feels pressed hard against my body, devilishly running on so that I'll follow ,your undulating syllables, your firm round letters, your tight sweet semi-colon, that no common comma could replace.

I reach my hand down below the sheets and beneath the wasteband that gives way,
to find myself engorged

And though I know we've not yet met,
I find my love still yet to be,
climbing up the bed I've conjured,
while laying between wake and sleep

I've done things that make some blush,
that I'd never thought I'd do
But with no regret, nor pride
Looking back on seasons passed,
while dining in hell's lobby

Boys and girls and girls and boys
And boys and boys and all those games
At times tied down, straddled by an angry hearted girl looking to exact revenge on past lovers by digging in to my softer parts while forcing me to ask for more

And yes at times, the one on top, succumbing
to the darker drives, holding firm onto the wrists
of a lover, begging for a harder smack, a stronger sting, a more forceful pull on her locks, and coming only when she's felt sufficient pain to satisfy her shadow

And yes it's true, nights when still, I can't be sure in the pile
whose hands were where, whose mouth it was that wrapped around me
When tangled in so many arms, that truth becomes a story that we tell ourselves should we recall the night before

And if by chance, my reading friend, you're out there now tangled up in twisted sheets, drink until you've  had enough,  but not so deep that you mistake  neon for the sun,  as  there are some that never leave the shadow's cave

For as I lay here now alone, only two hands in this bed, not feeling lonely but instead, a sense of peace while still turned on.  
Having danced in demons arms and finding not the truth I sought,  I sinned my way to virtue

Where now I wait, for one true love, that will accept the things I've done and those things that were done to me that  even now are too much to tell

My self engorged, I touch my body, not with shame and with my head not filled with darker scenes as I've lived them all, and now have found that I prefer the sweetness and the light

Perhaps, I said.
But first, there's something
I must ask of you.  

Wrap one arm across your chest and embrace
the shoulder with the scar you  hide.  
With the other, place your  hand,
ever so gently, on your belly,
too soft though you think it is

Whisper now, but not for me, or any other
Just for you.  Whisper what you've been
withholding from yourself these many years

'I love you'  and not the you that you pretend to be, or the you you think someone else will love.  

The you, that is so delicate and beautiful, a tiger and a lamb.  The you who only wants you to notice the way your laughter sounds like sunshine,  the you that doesn't understand why you give yourself away to everyone else.  The one who loves you most.

'I love you' to the only one that if you truly love, will set you free to chase the wind and drink the rain from the sky with abandon.

Love the you that has suffered by your side with every choice, compelled by fear, that lead you places you knew better than to go, following beautiful creatures into the dark

Please, embrace yourself now,  give the love that you deserve, that you've spilled like wine along your path but never sipped.  

And when you have, you'll find me out beneath the stars lying in the grass.

Erstwhile, the morning came a new.  
Yet you, in your self imposed blindness,
failed to see the brilliance of the sunrise.
This being the lessor of two tragedies,
as the light within you, both brighter
and eternal remains equally unnoticed.

We'll meet in our life's afternoon
As the morning's all but gone
Lessons learned, small scars, big tears,
but no regrets at all

I'll share the bread and wine I've brought
Half or more, I have enough
I built small castles 'long the way
Money and its comforts
this time easily they came

I'll be merely who I am
I stopped pretending long ago,
to be something that I'm not
or caring what the critics say
When writing of me in the times

And so I'll meet you free and clear
Mind and body, both are sound
Thanks to yoga, and reflection
About life's meaning and that of love
One and the same they seem to be

Please don't rush; I will be here
Take care to learn your lessons well
Arrive too soon and you'll still be searching
For the self you've yet to find

How lovely though that day will be
And all they days from then till night
Walking hand in hand
No concern of other lovers
or casual friends that want us just the same

And we will have the love
that lovers always dream of
but never preserve to find
and exiting too soon
wind up miles from the spot

I'll meet you by the rising sun
And somehow will just know your name
As you will mine, and hair and eyes
While moving at the spend of sound
My lover, soon is soon enough

At first,

It’s barely an itch.

Slowly it worsens.

You drown it in wine.

It learns to swim.

You *******.

It still smolders.

It burns.

And then,

You add gasoline

And rage along side of it

Inevitability.

You took a lover

But wanted a savior

To make you whole.

To complete you.

And when he was only a lover

You began to hate him

For not being what he never was

What you tried to make him

He couldn’t save you

Only you can.

And when you do,

you’ll be ready for a lover.

One that’s already saved himself

Instead of two halves

You’ll be two wholes

Through which light will shine

Gripping tightly, my left hand ‘round the sharp blade of a knife
while gently caressing your hair with the other

I’ve tried so hard to hold on to you without losing myself

I’ve twisted and turned reality, railing against the tide
desperately searching for a way
a way to make something not what it actually is
like an alchemist off the rails, high on vapor

And yet finally, with the futility of it all sublimely amusing
the pain finally searing beyond my ability to tolerate,
I must finally come to terms with the meaning of goodbye

Not goodbye as in ‘maybe someday’
or goodbye as in ‘until we meet again’
Goodbye with a capital G, with finality, with certainty

And not the first goodbye, or one of many, rather
The last goodbye, the one from which there is no return trip

I loved you as best I could, and with abandon
But in the end, I must choose myself

I must choose my own life, and if that means killing
the fetus of our metaphoric future, then so be it

There can be nothing left.  Scorched earth.  
No glimmer of hope, not a grain of sand
We aren’t tragic heroes, we’re just tragic

I won’t turn back as I walk away,
even so briefly, to look in your direction

I won’t unintentionally find my way
onto your street for an accidental encounter
I won’t consciously unconsciously keep you hanging
to ease my fear

Find a lover or don’t
Find another, don’t
Either way I choose me this time, for the first time. Ever.

Not just good day sir,

Goodbye