we sat down on this tennis
court under the sky and outer
space had eaten it
up and was hanging from the trees and
stars were landing on my
cheeks. time was flushed away and everything happened
at once without
order. we sat across from each other and
looked. my clay face was being
shaped to every burning movement of
her eyes. the only air that existed was
the air we shared that cycled through my
lungs and then hers. with each breath more of
her seeped into my
blood. she was wearing a
sweatshirt that was probably
grey. her shirt underneath it
was soft like it always
was. i am sick of the word
beautiful. i want something else something
more accurate something less
hollow something less
nothing but i cannot think of
a word. i am sitting on this tennis
court and she is also sitting
up and we are
intertwined. you know
how one person’s legs go
under and one person’s
legs go
over and then you are both sitting
up and your chests are an inch
apart. so i am sitting
there and i am feeling ****** by just how
beautiful she is. i am thinking for the millionth
time that she is the
most exquisite living
thing i have ever looked at. she is like a centuries-
old statue carved from a
stone that no longer
exists, she is dug
up from a lake of
nectar and it is
different than a centuries-old
statue because she carries the
life of the whole
world. it is that tape in my head
again, you are so
beautiful you are so beautiful you are so
beautiful. i am in absolute
awe. i don’t think anymore. she
tells me she doesn’t see
herself this way. at all. she sees crooked
teeth and anything but what i
see. woman
birthed from a planet like
venus but infinitely more,
more, purple sea lush living
garden golden
soil. have you ever felt so
shocked that your thoughts
stop. i have never been at such a
loss for
words. i think maybe my
mouth dropped open. i don’t
know what to
say because it is something i
cannot possibly fathom. that she doesn’t
see it. it is clear as
nothing to me and she doesn’t
see it. it was utter
disbelief and
i felt it on behalf of the entire
world. my hands were
combing through her soft
hair and feeling her soft
shoulders and cupping her
neck like anything i
did could crack. i was
balancing on the
edge of this
gorge and if i move all the china
shatters. can i move here. the air is
different. it’s sweet and it is
thick with whatever fills
black holes which is
nothing and i guess this makes
sense because i think my
lungs could have filled and
expanded mercury
oxygen miles
and miles. she tells me she is
nervous, she hasn’t felt this
way about someone in a
while, she thinks this could be
for a long time, it probably won’t
happen now, that’s
okay. she tells me she is
nervous, she is
bundled in this sweatshirt that
was probably grey and she speaks so
softly and her words bounce
gently between packed
molecules of various
planets until they land with
me and i am
weightless. it took me weeks to
write down what i
felt in this moment. i was
looking for adjectives which are
useless when
you can see. in this bundled
moment i see
myself looking into her
face and the tree
branches lower down to brush
away the world and there is my
face, there is my
face and there are stars reflecting in my
eyes. they reflect what i am
watching so intently. this girl
made of things the earth
doesn’t have. the top curve of the
atmosphere was dusted
away with one
breath and i was blown into a
place i cannot come
down from. cannot come back from.
i realize only at the
end of this stream that this
is the moment i fell in
love.
poem for myself. finally figured out how i felt when i fell in love.