can I taste the sky?

I do not want to marry a poet
I do not want sonnets written about the way
I take my hair down-
I do not want endless verses about depths within my eyes
I do not want descriptions of my lips
and metaphors about my pulse
for one who is too focused on the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss me
and no woman worth my life would ever
spend time alone, writing about me
rather than spend time with me,
making rhymes with our lips and
meter with our feet as we dance together,
alliteration in the way our hands entwine
and assonance in our limbs colliding-
letting our soft animal bodies love what they love,
because the only metaphor I will ever need is not a metaphor:
you are really here, we are really alive
and all before you has been a dream.

parenthood is the scariest thing, to me
the ability to love something to the point
that you know it better than it knows itself
seems nearly impossible and very easy to ruin
its chances for fulfilling its dreams
and guiding it through storms while it constantly pulls away
is the bravest of the loves, I think.

how much flannel do I have to wear
and how much leg hair do I have to grow
until my friends match my spirit
and how many hoodies can I wear
and how many girls do I have to kiss
before everyone knows I'm gay
without having to tell them
and how many hiking trips and how many
fields of flowers would you be willing to walk
through with me? and in how many waterfalls
would you like to swim? and under how many stars
can we sleep before we fall in love?

I believe
That writers are
So brave
Because each time
They start writing
Blotting ink onto
Their paper
Frustratingly typing on
Their laptop
They rip their heart out
Of their chest
And show the world
What it's made of.