I know we’ve known each other for a while, as friends,
but there is something you must know.
I see the way you read and the way you play the piano and
the way you quote Shakespeare, and there is an aching in my
bones to be the thing that steals your time and focus the way
the simplest of hobbies do.
I want you to read me the way you hungrily read books
cover to cover, scanning every word of the story, knowing it in and out,
the way one only could through careful scrutiny.
I want you to touch me the way you play the piano, striking
the keys with such emotion at times and hardly grazing them at others.
I want you to make me sing the way you make the piano sing for you, love,
songs that no one else knows the words to.
I want you to speak to me in such a way that my heart melts
between your words, sentences so eloquent and intimate,
made only for my ears, sentences so carefully wrought and woven,
sentences so softly strung together that the slightest breath might blow them away,
sentences that Shakespearean sonnets couldn’t dare hold a candle to.
I want to be the one not only who takes your time, but also the one who
consumes you completely,
just as you’ve consumed me.

You look lovely in
spring colors, chrysanthemum,
drop dead beautiful.

Red, purple, and pink
are toxic to me, I think
poisonous nectar.

Yellow and white shades
steeped in boiling water
become amber tea.

Haikus made around
chrysanthemums in the ground
have a pleasing sound.

cry me a river
build a bridge
and get over it

he said,

but if only he knew how many
oceans I’d cried for him and
how many bridges I’d burned
trying to get over us

If riches, beauty, calm, humility,
compersion, contentedness, and
inspiration are all secrets that
are tucked between the pages of
one book or another,
why have you not yet read it?
You struggle with your sins, yet you do
nothing to combat them.
I know it isn’t because of your lack
of desire to read, if it were, I would
find the most luxurious vellum,
richest ink, and I would write a book
just for you if that is what it takes
to get you to understand that
these things you do, are not only
darkening your soul,
but they’re costing you your friends.
I know that without the darkness,
stars could not be seen, but
I would rather lose you to my mouth
than to the dark.

I’ll never forget
the night we had
on the rosewood floor,
the way you looked,
the way you smelled
the way you felt
on my skin.
I’d have the floor taken
up and I’d cover my walls
with it to evoke the
memory of you every single day,
more clearly.
I’d build my casket out of it and
bury myself alive, if that is
what it takes to get
you to see that
I am dying without you.

I never asked you for your body count and to be frank, I honestly don’t care.
The number of lovers we shared our beds with is irrelevant, so why do you waste your precious air?

If the big bang created everything we now know,
if the sun brings us life,
if the moon, turns the tide,
how can we not be moved by the stars?
We’re practically stardust, ourselves.