Love is not like anything, of course,
but sometimes I think that my love must be like the sea,
for so much of him I must swim to get to,
and so much of him, like the sea, lurks menacingly beneath the surface, dark and deep and dangerous.

All his hidden women crouch beneath his warm skin
and when I touch him, they come up to the surface to greet me;
I picture their long hair wrapping itself around my neck,
their beautiful nails digging into the vulnerable skin of my wrists,
and suddenly I am filled with the knowledge of him with them,
his hands on the crook of their being,
his lips grazing the naked skin of their backsides.
The thought makes me shiver, and when I hear his voice,
genuine and loving-- "what's the matter?"--
I want to cry almost as much as I want to keep on kissing him.

Love is like what? Love is not like anything,
and especially not my love and I's.
Loving him could be like drowning or suffocating if it did not feel like breathing too,
Or perhaps, more generally, like dying a slow and painful death, if only I had ever felt anything so much like rebirth.

Do you remember the last night?
Me, standing helpless in my doorway,
hands aching to reach out, and you--
figure retreating, head hanging down.

Some nights I thought our passion
would break our bodies apart.
Other nights I thought your indecision would.

one day we will walk to the other side of principle
and our gold intentions will become pure acts,
the burning footprints we left fading behind us.

one day we will hike to the peak of almosts
and we will kiss the skin of our souls' lining soft;
we will make the yearning of lovers light.

one day we will rest our weary limbs at the top of the world
and love as far as our eyes can see--
you will love, and I will love, and we will be free.

Sometimes it does not hurt to look at you;
sometimes I feel light again when we touch, like you have never hurt me, like our hearts are again mirrors for the other,
like you're looking at me again on a dark night in my car,
kissing my knuckles and my forehead and promising me you'll make it all okay.

But, God, sometimes--
Sometimes the ghost of your hands on me weighs me down so much that I can't move.
Sometimes I look at you and I am being left all over again.
Sometimes I look at you and your heart is so close to being in my hands and then you rip it out of reach again and take mine with it.
Sometimes you are breaking all your promises again.
Sometimes I look at you and I become a skeleton.

More than anything, I want to say: “Come to me, and I will kiss the fragile skin of your eyelids, and I will see gold in the brown pools of your eyes, and I will touch the skin of you soft, and I will kiss you all over. I will make a home for my lips of you.

Come to me, and let us be warmth; we don’t have to be cold anymore. Come to me, and I’ll light a warm fire under your skin, and we can be happy.

Come to me. Crash into me; fall, fall, do not be scared. You are safe. You are so safe. Let me run my lips over the fresh white skin of your scars. Let me be a dose of healing. Let me help you be happy. Let me. Let me. Let me.”

In you I speak a million unspeakable tongues;
like honey I let a language of love pour off the cliff of my top lip,
flow into the basin of your cupid's bow as we kiss.
There in that crevice is where you forcibly store the past of us;
there is no speaking anymore, we do not converse.
There is only the pointing of the blade inward
and the blood you let pool into your eyes when you look at me.

A professor asked me today: "What would you do if there were no boundaries?"
I'm sure she wanted me to say "travel the world" or "pursue my passion"
but all I could think about was reaching across the invisible barrier between us,
effortlessly sticking my hand through that grand fortress of brick,
and guiding your soft, tired head to the haven of my chest;
feeling your hair on my lips and letting the sweet salt of you pour into my skin.

You left in me the vacancy of almosts,
a house I created in my heart that was never lived in;
now the wallpaper peels and the floorboards creak
with the weight your feet never placed on them
and I sit alone on the roof, too scared to go in,
staring up at the night sky, looking at the moon,
thinking about the constellations we formed when we touched--
how you dipped my neck back, pressed your lips to me,
grazed at my veins with your teeth,
left bruises but never quite let me bleed.

A week ago I was in your arms, trying to let my guard down.
I sit alone now-- too scared to go in, too scared to try again.

You kiss me on a Saturday night in my car.
You tell me you were never in love with her
and I breathe forgiveness from my lips like the greatest relief in the world.

You hold me on a Sunday night in my room
and you trace the outline of my ribs with a palm
that's switched from harnessing claws to soft fingers back to claws
so many times that I've lost count now.
I push back your hair and map your face out with my fingertips,
trying to memorize the warm skin stretched out over your bones
and trying to comprehend how I could begin to place my hand
on your tired soul-- bring light out of the depths of you and make it rise to the surface with my touch.
When you ask if we can stay like this, wrapped up in each other, forever, my mind races,
and I pray to a God that I don't believe in-- plea that He will let me stay in this moment,
before you run back to her,
before your words crawl back into your throat to collect dust,
before you grow spikes like spores under your warm skin,
and before I open up my arms and let you push them into my vulnerable body with a steel face and tears running down my cheeks.

We see a movie on a Monday afternoon.
The darkness of the movie theater heightens our senses,
and I trace idle circles on your skin,
feel your lips on my cheek and on my chin.
As you're about to go home, we can't seem to stop hugging,
and I'm kissing you, kissing you, aching for the breath to leave me
because something in me knows that tomorrow won't be the same.
You kiss my knuckles as a soft goodbye and walk away from my house.

I come to school on Tuesday morning
and she's hanging off your coat in the hallways.
You look at me with pain in your eyes.
You offer no other explanation.

I take what I can get.
I don't ask questions I don't want to know the answers to.
I lay with you and map the plains of your face with my fingertips and I think:
this face, this face--- this face that's caused me so much pain,
this face I've seen buried in the neck of another girl,
holding her tight and apologizing for me.
How odd that I can place my palm on something that was such a symbol of pain for me once.
I hold your hands soft in my hands and I think:
these hands left an imprint in my skin, a warm reminder and then a cold sting-
but now they are touching me soft, and your lips are kissing me soft,
and I take what I can get.
I don't ask questions I don't want to know the answers to.

I've been thinking about your body on my body;
fingertips that paint a portrait on my skin,
lips that pull a poem out of my throat.
I've been thinking about our hands intertwined
on the softness of your bed sheets,
my hair a sea spread out against the dark wine
and our bodies moving together in unison.

I've been thinking about your body on my body.
I've been thinking about what it does.

I would love you like an ocean. I would shift into a tidal wave for the shore of your hands. You would shape yourself into me like the sand does for the sea.

I would love you like a warm fire on a cold Sunday afternoon. I would warm your cold fingertips after a weary week. You would feel the wisps of my hair on your warm skin like the wisps of a comforting flame, and we would be at home.

I would open up your veins and set up shop inside each and every chamber of your heart. I would run my fingers along the lining of your soul and show you that you cannot stain my skin black, that I will not let you, that you are as much of a map as I am and that I will walk brave into the unknown and place my palm on the essence of you.

I would make myself a river basin for you. You could pour yourself into me and I would not send you back to the clouds. Let me be your anchor, let me pull you down into the embrace of my arms, let me calm you down and kiss you into a fervor and make you a home in the fresh white skin of my scars.

I would love you with so much force and equally as much softness. Just let me.

Little girl,
you are not the scars on your thighs
or the mocking stares from "friends."
You do not live to be there for others;
you are your own galaxy, beautiful-
unknowable even to yourself sometimes
and that is not entirely a bad thing.
As you grow up,
you will learn to appreciate
the complexity of your solar systems
and you will not need to open up your veins
to see the planets hiding underneath your skin.

Little girl,
this pain will not last forever
and if I could, I would go back to you-
little girl sobbing naked in a bath tub
she turned red with her own blood-
and I would lull you to sleep,
spare you the tears and the scars and the ache.
But your pain will teach you lessons
that no happiness could have;
one day you will rise from the ashes
like a phoenix, wings held high,
engulfed in the flame of your former self.
And you will be so proud.

Come to me.
I want to open up your chest
and show you the galaxies I see in your heart,
pumping out into every part of your body,
your flesh like one giant constellation
that I could not ever wish to unlearn.

Come to me.
I want to feel your hair on my lips
and tell you about how each and every hair
feels like a blessing on my cracked mouth;
what an honor it is to taste you,
to taste your skin, to taste your soul.

Come to me.
We don't have to say a word.
Talk to me with your hands
and I'll answer back with my mouth.
That will be enough.

We seem like a dream now--
your lips always at the back of my consciousness,
the ghost of your hands hovering above my hips,
and I'm drowning in you still, clumsily falling,
my melted heart all gooey in your palms--

When you touch me I am new again
like a Phoenix reborn
and it's been so long since I've been cleansed;
I don't want to wake up
please wear me like armor in the heat of the storm

I shake all the time
because you took down all my walls
and now the weather won't stop
washing over me in powerful tides

We are always one step away
from tearing each other apart
with love in our eyes
and sweet nothings foaming up
and out of our throats;
So close-- and yet so far.

In bitterness, in longing, in nostalgia-
in every emotion concerning you,
I am the open body on a surgical table,
longing for you to know every millimeter of my vulnerable flesh.
I am the raw pinkness of my insides
flipped inside out in an attempt to fix them.

I can't settle for anything other than you.
You tear me open with such adept hands;
I go so willingly.

this sea i am drowning in
will soon leave me washed up on the shore,
but i gasp and i cling to the tides
and sing my songs of "stay, stay, stay" evermore

we were the byproduct of my sad soul
and your savior complex.
you were never there to kiss my scars,
so i forced my blood to freeze

you are so cosmic;
everything that you are
has been spread thin
across the stars,
and all i've left to do
is smile and marvel
with each newly learned
constellation.

Your skin, the page;
my lips, the pen.
Sonnets of my reverence
covering every inch.

again, how do i delete

4/27:
your fingers still trace circles
on my hipbones. i feel them
every time i move. i want
your mouth on my skin,
your words on the tip of my eardrum.
i miss you. i see you every day.

5/4:
your touch fades away with
every shower i take. grime
takes its place. i pray
for you to wash it away.

this isn't funny anymore.

5/11:
i crave you in every move
i make. i crave nothing more
than i crave you. i crave
my nose in your neck, i crave
the way your voice cradles my name.

i crave nothing more than i crave you.

allow me to sigh words
into the corners of your mouth,
the crevice of your shoulder,
the crease of your neck
and i'll tell you
what it tastes like
when we take them all back.

my skin stretches and strains
to again work over my scars
and all i can help wondering
is if i furthered that cycle
the second i stepped into your car.

i just need you to be a presence
somewhere in my life,
with your mind and your face
and your living off a dare

i don't need you to be in love with me
or care about it when i get scared,
but if you want to
the offer's still there.

i know how this will end

all i can think is that
it would be a privilege
to have my heart ripped in two
by someone as charming as you

i would single-handedly
give up every shred of happiness
etched into my poorly-drawn veins
just to see you aflame with joy
in the midst of a lazy afternoon.

i could write novels
about the spaces in between
what i know how to explain;
about the way you move
or the way your voice sounds
to my eardrum at 1:30 am

i could write so many poems
about everything that you are
and everything that we are in this moment
but all i have are these tiny words
and sad cliches to get me by
and that's not enough.

that night you told me
you weren't very good with words
but all you knew and all you felt
was that you loved me-
that was real.

so tonight when you spit on my show,
you can't blame me for wondering
what it is now that you know and that you feel-
is that real?

i am scared
of so many things:
the dark; deep water;
airplanes and heights

but the flutter in my chest
when your lip flicks upward
exceeds any other terror
i have yet to know.

i feel your voice fading away in my mind,
and your laugh with it too
and all i can think through all of it
is that i don't want to erase you-
even after all we've been through.

Your crooked lips
echo in my brain
And I still strain
to kiss their very tip.